Prayer

The World Peace Bell – Canberra

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The Rotary World Peace Bell, Nara Park, Canberra

The inscription at the memorial, attributed to Laozi – Chinese Poet and Philosopher …

If there is to be peace in the world, there must be peace between nations. 
If there is to be between nations, there must be peace in the cities. 
If there is to be peace in the cities, there must be peace within neighbours. 
If there is to be peace within neighbours, there must be peace at home. 
If there is to be peace at home, there must be peace in the heart.

Laozi – Lao Tzu, also rendered as Lao-Tze, was an ancient Chinese philosopher and writer. He is the reputed author of the Tao Te Ching, the founder of philosophical Taoism, and a deity in religious Taoism and traditional Chinese religions.

Laozi on Wikipedia – Laozi – Wikipedia

Details –
In partnership with the World Peace Bell Association, the Rotary Club of Canberra Burley Griffin built the Canberra Rotary Peace Bell within the Canberra Nara Peace Park precinct on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin.

Officially launched on 23 February 2018 the bell provides a destination in Nara Park to remind us that we want a peaceful World.

Canberra has a sister city relationship with Nara, Japan

An appropriate time to ring out for world peace. Let us not underestimate the power of prayer and communal thought for peace.

i thank you God – e e cummings – analysis

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i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e e cummings (1894 – 1962) (in ‘complete poems 1904 – 1962’)

This is a Sunday praise poem … the birth of another week … the birth of another day. And someone once said that each day is a new life. I can’t help thinking of ‘Mrs Dalloway’ and all that happened on a glorious English summer June day in her party arrangements and the entertaining of friends.

This is a thankyou in recognition of the boundless happening of all that is Earth (illimitably – having no bounds).

And a statement that God can be found in the natural world.

Life is to be tasted, touched, heard, seen and breathed in all its immeasurable wonder. And in the last two lines there is a spiritual awakening expressed in terms of hearing and seeing.

And e e c had this prayer his only be want was he be he –

(‘may I be I is the only prayer—not may I be great or good or beautiful or wise or strong’)

An excellent discussion of this poem is on this Art and Theology site.

Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he was raised, a pastor’s son, in the Unitarian faith, which emphasizes the oneness of God. As an adult he wed this spiritual framework to Emersonian transcendentalism, a philosophical movement that celebrates humanity and nature. Elements from these two complementary traditions can be detected in his praise poem “i thank You God for most this amazing,” in which the natural world triggers an awakening to Truth. And for Cummings, Truth is a person, a “You” with a capital Y.

e e cummings on Wikipedia.

The Pains of Sleep – Coleridge – Prayer

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From – The Pains of Sleep

Ere on my bed my limbs I lay,
It hath not been my use to pray
With moving lips or bended knees;
But silently, by slow degrees,
My spirit I to Love compose,
In humble trust mine eye-lids close,
With reverential resignation
No wish conceived, no thought exprest,
Only a sense of supplication;
A sense o’er all my soul imprest
That I am weak, yet not unblest,
Since in me, round me, every where
Eternal strength and Wisdom are.

This is the first stanza of a poem written by Coleridge. And this is a little different to have as a Christmas piece. The full poem was written by Coleridge when under the influence of opium and wishing to have a restful night.

Coleridge is lying on his bed he decides to pray not in the conventional way; there are no bended knees and no words uttered. It is a prayer from the mind as he composes thoughts to ‘Love’. In this respect he has a reverential resignation and a sense of supplication. A humble and sincere appeal in his weakness. Note that Love is capitalised.

But the great thing is he recognises that he is not unblest since Eternal strength and Wisdom abound and are everywhere including within his frail weak body. This is such a marvellous statement that honours the creator of life; that honours God.

Today the Christian religion recognises the son of man and the son of God in the birth of Jesus. The wonderful thing about this is the personal human connectivity that this provides.

Truly this is a day for celebration.

Prayer – Carol Ann Duffy – Analysis

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Prayer

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So, a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child’s name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio’s prayer –
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

Carol Ann Duffy

Minim = a musical note with the time value of half a semibreve or two crotchets. It is written as an open note head with a stem.
Train = long moving line of people

Looking at this sonnet …

The first quatrain … when in the middle of a task something to the peripheral arrests attention … in this instant a voice from the trees … as though someone else is speaking and there is communion with the environment … the woman stops what she is doing and for one brief moment there is an appreciation of life … the joy of just being.… there is a gift of thanks … or putting it another way this can be thought of as a prayer of thanks whether or not just a thank you for life or whether a thank you to another ‘God’.

The second quatrain … prayers happen regardless of any formal faith … night is the time when the mind is vulnerable … and often in those sleep hours thoughts occur seemingly out of nowhere… and if the truth of the matter unravels there is usually some pain and discomfort from this communion in any resolution.

Maybe hearing a piece of music gives association to something way back from his youth … perhaps to a time when the man was more motivated and a time when he was following his young heart with strong purpose … and again this may be painful and the man may seek consolation if reflecting on unfilled dreams.

The third quatrain … pray for us now – this looks like an ask … an ask for help and we all need help and support in order to give help and support … prayer is defined as a solemn request or a giving of thanks to an object of worship (usually God) … so this is an ask for us to ask our ‘God’ for help for those in need … to invoke an external force … if the lodger needed consolation then the Grade 1 piano scales could be seen as a response to prayer. The last sentence seems to show a person in grief … as though they named their loss … in grief for a child and in need of consolation … in need of prayer

The rhyming couplet … mentioning the shipping forecast invokes a prayer for those at sea … a prayer that sailors may be able to heed the information and not risk life … darkness outside gives the feeling that prayer is a mystery and hidden … whereas inside the radio’s prayer gives the other side of the coin that prayer always emanates from the internal reaching out from the person

Re: shipping forecasts … the unique and distinctive sound of these broadcasts has led to their attracting an audience much wider than that directly interested in maritime weather conditions. Many listeners find the repetition of the names of the sea areas almost hypnotic, particularly during the night-time broadcast at 0048 UK time. (from Wikipedia)

I do like this sonnet as it widens the concept of traditional prayer and brings prayer down to the basics of everyday communication in the living of life.

And to end, –  a prayer that our daily transactions are appropriate as we negotiate life!