If you have not read the thank you card on the noticeboard here ’ s what it says :
To the members of St Oswald ’ s Scottish Episcopal Church
I am writing to say a huge thank you for your wonderful donation of £ 198 for Cancer Research UK which you raised at your Harvest Festival .
THOUGHTS FOR THE NEW YEAR RESCUED FROM THE OLD
Many thanks Carol Grant
Every year I get an Advent Calendar which is published in Hamburg , Germany under the title : ‘ A different kind of Advent ’. It contains thoughts for the day , some of those I would like to share with you .
DO YOU PRAY
That is a question which usually irritates people . The question is embarrassing and so is the answer .
Praying is considered child-like , childish , since a prayer would have been the first encounter with faith for a child .
Yet the Good-Night prayer verses , which grandmothers have taught , have remained intimately familiar . Often prayer is the first and the last thing people do in their lives , Alpha and Omega .
Do you pray ? The question is considered to be impudent . Those asking and answering know that prayer does need a remnant of child-like trust , it means talking to some being which does not answer readily .
That is naive , curious , suspect , a remnant of the old un-enlightened times in our secular world . Is that so ?
Is praying an unreasonable act ?
Prayer is more alive than the churches which teach it . It is more lively , because you don ’ t necessarily need the church ’ s teaching or hierarchy for it . Prayer gives language to needs , it by-passes ‘ speechless desperation ’, it gives words to happiness and to misery , there is nothing which cannot be said , even up to crying : ’ My God , why have you forsaken me !’ - This cry in extremis is already a beginning : He that cries is not stuck in resignation but has started to act against the injury done to him and to others .
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( Heribert Prantl )