Prayer in Our Lives: A Way of Connecting
This year, Town Meeting HCRJ will focus on helping us to understand the place of prayer in our lives.
We will explore what it means to pray. We will explore how we psych ourselves up so that we are able to pray. We will will talk about the reasons that we sometimes need to pray. In our sessions we will think about how we are supposed to be feeling at the time.
What exactly is prayer? Consider the following definition. "Prayer, like plugging in an electrical appliance or logging on to the internet, is a way of connecting. We may not understand how electricity or the World Wide Web work, but we still benefit from using them. Likewise, when we pray we may not at first understand to whom we are praying, nor how we might be answered, but by daring to make that connection..." we can begin to make some sense of the things that are happening to us in our lives. We can begin to figure out who we are and where we fit into the world. Prayer enables us to find strength that we did not know we had, to find hope when life gets a little bumpy and to learn how to forgive ourselves and others when things get screwed up.
We will also learn something about how we can use time, as well. These days we live very busy lives, with too much to do and not enough time to do it. Being so busy, it is easy for us to sometimes neglect the things that are most important in our lives, like spending time with our family, being considerate of the feelings of other people or setting aside time for the things that make us feel good about ourselves.
Rabbi Abraham Heschel called the Sabbath "...an island in time." Why do we need an island in time? We set aside a part of the Sabbath to find a quiet place and time where we can just think clearly. We have a lot of issues and problems we have to deal with every day. Setting aside a block of time away from the television set or the computer gives us the opportunity to sort things out. When we have these conversations with ourselves, it isn't a lot different from praying. We are connecting with ourselves and in the process keeping things real.
Learning how to make prayer a part of our lives will enable us to connect to ourselves as well.
This may all seem a lot to be taking in. Even adults have a problem fully understanding the idea of prayer and how praying works. So let's just take this adventure in learning one step at a time and see where it takes us. Come with good questions and your own take on things and share those thoughts with us.
Once again, welcome to Town Meeting this year. Hopefully this will be a very interesting and rich experience for all of us.
Kindest regards,
Howard Fireman
We will explore what it means to pray. We will explore how we psych ourselves up so that we are able to pray. We will will talk about the reasons that we sometimes need to pray. In our sessions we will think about how we are supposed to be feeling at the time.
What exactly is prayer? Consider the following definition. "Prayer, like plugging in an electrical appliance or logging on to the internet, is a way of connecting. We may not understand how electricity or the World Wide Web work, but we still benefit from using them. Likewise, when we pray we may not at first understand to whom we are praying, nor how we might be answered, but by daring to make that connection..." we can begin to make some sense of the things that are happening to us in our lives. We can begin to figure out who we are and where we fit into the world. Prayer enables us to find strength that we did not know we had, to find hope when life gets a little bumpy and to learn how to forgive ourselves and others when things get screwed up.
We will also learn something about how we can use time, as well. These days we live very busy lives, with too much to do and not enough time to do it. Being so busy, it is easy for us to sometimes neglect the things that are most important in our lives, like spending time with our family, being considerate of the feelings of other people or setting aside time for the things that make us feel good about ourselves.
Rabbi Abraham Heschel called the Sabbath "...an island in time." Why do we need an island in time? We set aside a part of the Sabbath to find a quiet place and time where we can just think clearly. We have a lot of issues and problems we have to deal with every day. Setting aside a block of time away from the television set or the computer gives us the opportunity to sort things out. When we have these conversations with ourselves, it isn't a lot different from praying. We are connecting with ourselves and in the process keeping things real.
Learning how to make prayer a part of our lives will enable us to connect to ourselves as well.
This may all seem a lot to be taking in. Even adults have a problem fully understanding the idea of prayer and how praying works. So let's just take this adventure in learning one step at a time and see where it takes us. Come with good questions and your own take on things and share those thoughts with us.
Once again, welcome to Town Meeting this year. Hopefully this will be a very interesting and rich experience for all of us.
Kindest regards,
Howard Fireman
posted by hfireman at
11:53 PM
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