It's been more than a year (17 months) to be exact since my last entry. Today, I've decided to share my poetic side. After having read Khalil Gibran's The Prophet (which is a really good read, btw!), I've managed to make a response to one of my favorite chapters.
Visit this link for a copy of The Prophet:
Here it is, my favorite chapter: Prayer.
PRAYER
Then a priestess said, speak to us of prayer.
And he answered, saying:
You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you 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.
'It is thy desire in us that desireth.
'It is thy urge in us that would turn out nights, which are thine, into days, which are thine also.
'We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are born in us:
'Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all.'
My response to the poem:
Yes, perhaps in anything and through everything,
The trivial and the considerable, be it big or small,
Can make the joyous or even the hardest of hearts sing
If and only if one allows Jesus to have them all.
At one moment of our conversation, I learned
About the importance of praying and how prayer is
Something that guides one's path from getting burned.
A single twig breaks, but he who constantly prays sticks in the bundle of His.
Through prayer, all things are possible.
What once was a fortress of the weak and poor is still
A mighty stronghold despite our attempts so feeble.
Prayer indeed is the best armor against one's Achilles' heel.
Reminiscing, I used to tell my sister during the nights:
"One must not pray as though he considers himself
A hypocrite who stands in the highest of heights,
Just to be seen by the crowd, oh darling instead be an elf.
Teeny-weeny as you seem, to the crowd you may not win,
But when you pray to the Father behind closed doors,
The Supreme One, the Omniscient, and yet unseen,
Sees your actions and will reward you with the stronger force."
Now, all ears on me: When one opts to pray, he does not
Have to be in a holy place like that of the temple.
Intentions of his should show utmost sincerity
In the Lord - to know, to love, and to hear the Father's call.
As you've mentioned, one cannot teach another
How to pray in words or which words to utter
"For what we speak of," says my faithful mother,
"Can be different to what we actually feel," adds my sister.
Finally, let us all be not like a pagan
Who thinks he will be heard for all his gibberings.
Little does he know the truth about prayer, so the Bible began
To preach: "Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him so pray from the heart." Blessings, earthlings!
