Little Gidding

At the end of the Four Quartets, there is a brief notes section one each of Eliot's poems. Under these notes, it is explained that Little Gidding was a religious community in 1626 when it was founded. In his poem, Eliot writes, "prayer is more than an order of words, the conscious occupation of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying." This stood out starkly for me as I was reading. It explains that prayer is so much more than what we think it is. It is the fire for which we speak with God. Eliot explains this in the next couple lines saying that "the communication of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living." Like Abbie mentioned in her post the fire of God can either burn someone up or warm him softly- this all depends on how we absorb God's fire. So, all in all prayer is the fire from God, it is our communication with him. We should not waste this preciousness on useless words. Like my pastor said on Sunday, "if God answered my prayers with yes from the past 7 days, would anything in the world be changed?" It makes one think about what she/he has been praying for.

I posted on Nate's!