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July 21, 2006

Prayed through

I keep a copy of Thomas Kelly's A Testament of Devotion in my backpack. It's small but powerful, a good place to turn when I feel capable of reading tremendous insights presented powerfully. This morning I fell into this paragraph:

We may suppose these depths of prayer are our achievement, the precipitate of our own habits at the surface level settled into subconscious regions. But this humanistic account misses the autonomy of the life of prayer. It misses the fact that this inner level has a life of its own, invigorated not by us but by a divine Source. There come times when prayer pours forth in volumes and originality such as we cannot create. It rolls through us like a mighty tide. Our prayers are mingled with a vaster Word, a Word that at one time was made flesh. We pray, and yet it is not we who pray, but a Greater who prays in us. Something of our punctiform selfhood is weakened, but never lost. All we can say is, Prayer is taking place, and I am given to be in the orbit. In holy hush we bow in Eternity, and know the Divine Concern tenderly enwrapping us and all things within His persuading love. Here all human initiative has passed into acquiescence, and He works and prays and seeks His own through us, in exquisite, energizing life. Here the autonomy of the inner life becomes complete and we are joyfully prayed through, by a Seeking Life that flows through us into the world of human beings. (17-18)

Kelly's description is far ahead of my own journey, where I've only had small flashes of that mighty tide rolling through. Reading of Kelly's experience is no substitute for that tide, but it suggests a direction I hope to follow.