Prayer I

Structured prayer is not spiritually satisfying for me. I do not like referring to synagogue prayer as 'going to services.'  My car needs service.  My soul needs nurturing, care and love.  I therefore wonder how, despite my resistance to relegating  God time to my calendar between 10 a.m and 12:30 pm. on Saturdays I am blessed with unpredictable moments of   palpable internal stillness. These  uninvited moments of being displaces the impact of  the endless, mechanical actions that I  perform to arrive at synagogue   -- waking, drinking coffee, reading the newspaper, dressing, gathering what I need -- a litany of utilitarian action verbs that have seemingly little to do with my relationship to God.  And yet they do.  Each awakening bears the precision and grace of a musical composition - at first slow and  tentative - each movement finding its way into the whole, a complex fugue rich in harmony and texture. 

There are no meaningless actions.  There are only actions that I fail to discern their meaning. I regularly wake, drink, read, gather, dress, drive, arrive. And with each seamless transition from one action to the other to the next I bless the source of life who has opened my eyes, provided me with the strength to stand, to clothe myself, to make choices.  My benign action verbs are cloaked by godliness. By the time I take my seat in shul I have opened myself up to a presence greater than myself, to a depth of meaning and being that I have barely begun to touch and to gratitude.  Once I am wearing my tallit, I feel as if I have entered the heavenly assembly and imagine a radiant tallit of light and splendor hovering over the divine presense [Psalm 104] and I am still.  For one timeless moment I feel the breadth and elegance of pure eternity and I am grateful.