Léarning to Love. Prayer

L´earning to  Love

Gloria Ornelas Hall

 Prayer

To pray is to ‘ray’ Love. One does not p-RAY from the head, but from the heart. It cannot be put into verbal-though formation or pictures of that which is desired. It is a sigh from the Soul, yearning for the Loved One(s).
Early Christian monks used to train the heart to pray, by repeating mantras in time with the heart-beat. They did it till every breath inhaled and exhaled Love…becoming a living continual prayer, themselves.
We cannot pray for something specific since that would limit destiny to our will; limit it to that which we know.  Chaos and Harmony are themselves, the ebbing and flowing of ‘Cosmic Breath’. Everything is OK. It’s about letting go, trusting and letting it Be.

It´s hard to talk about prayer, in an age where science and technology have overthrown belief in God. As a woman I find it easy to grasp, not necessarily understanding it, but just allowing myself to love freely. My ex-husband (one of them, anyway) thinks I´m crazy. It’s ‘New Age crap’ he says. However, even before the New Age came into vogue, I had already been a postulant and novice at a Carmelite Monastery living a contemplative life with vows of silence and obedience. So it isn´t just superficial well-wishing. I was trained that the Universe is as the Body of Christ, and we were a house of prayer, and, much as a heart to the body, we generated prayers (or good vibes) into the flow of life. No questions asked. No conditions. No control or proof necessary. Free, gracious loving.

Now, it’s easy to be good when you are cloistered. No temptations. Out here, it’s hell! Just trying to bring my daughter up as a believer, respecting her father´s right to be agnostic, was hard. I tried explaining that women find it easier to tap into the heart and trust. Men´s left-hemisphere thinking requires tangible proof to believe.
 “Man has evolved from the ape!!” he would argue…
“And I am a fallen angel, who met you half-way” I would answer. “Don’t try to understand me; just love me”.

Women I believe, walk the multi-coloured way of the rainbow that bridges reality and Truth. We lead the way for men. The Greeks made all the virtues feminine. Women were idealized for man to live-up to them. Unfortunately equality has leveled what were once stages of development. Still, if women look up to God, upon looking at a women’s eyes man can see God.

Corny?