Meditation Monday

Then a priestess said, Speak to us of Prayer.
And he answered, saying:
You pray in your distress and in your
need; would that might pray also in
the fullness of your joy and in your days
of abundance.

For what is prayer but the expansion of
yourself into the living ether?
And if it is for your comfort to pour
your darkness into space, it is also for your
delight to pour forth the dawning of your
heart.
And if you cannot but weep when your
soul summons you to prayer, she should spur
you again and yet again, though weeping,
until you shall come laughing.
When you pray you rise to meet in the
air those who are praying at that very hour,
and whom save in prayer you may not
meet.
Therefore let your visit to that temple
invisible be for naught but ecstasy and sweet
communion.
For if you should enter the temple for no
other purpose than asking you shall not
receive:
And if you should enter into it to humble
yourself you shall not be lifted:
Or even if you should enter into it to
beg for the good of others you shall not be
heard.
It is enough that you enter the temple 
invisible.

I cannot teach you how to pray in words.
God listens not to your words save when
He Himself utters them through your lips.
And I cannot teach you the prayer of the
seas and the forests and the mountains.
But you who are born of the mountains
and the forests and the seas can find their
prayer in your heart,
And if you but listen in the stillness of the
night you shall hear them saying in silence,
"Our God, who art our winged self, it
is thy will in us that willeth."

Kahlil Gibran The Prophet