I believe it was Maya Angelou who said something to the effect that most of us live small, we forget that each day we are invited to be guests in this amazing, large world. I thought of it this morning when I heard the actress Meryl Streep say that one of her mother’s traditions when she was a child was to come into her room and wake her up with the words:"Get up! It’s your day! What are you going to do with it?" It reminded me of a cartoon that my husband gave me once. A woman was sitting at a table, in her bathrobe, a man stands looking out the window. She asks:"How is it out there?" He answers:"It’s huge."

How easy it is to live small. We pull up the collar of our coat, burrow down into a turtle-head position, look straight ahead and keep at it….whatever it is. Instead of being prodded from our beds by the voice of a loving but determined mother, we put our clothes on, drink our coffee without tasting it, look at the same articles in the paper as yesterday with only the names changed, and continue on in our small way. We forget there is "huge" to be had.

Yesterday I was searching through books for our upcoming Advent Devotional. I came upon the following words by Frederick Zydek, poet, retired university professor who describes himself as a gentleman farmer. His words in some way invited me to enter into the largeness of life as he described the act of prayer. I hope it might be the same for you.

Praying Through the Thick of It
"You must give in to the seduction of silence. Listen for things central:the sound of air moving in and out of your being, the soft bump of blood drumming at your core, the small noises deep in the ears when different parts of your body call attention to themselves. Then listen past them. Squint your hearing as you might your eyes and seek some sense of music in the air around you. If you come back empty-handed you’re on your way. The mind will play hide and seek with everything you know. Let each game pass like summer storms on a windy day. Follow after none of them. Stay put. That’s more than half the matter. Dig into the celestial machinery with your heels, stand your ground, become everything the universe needs to know about itself. Let what you are speak to what always is. Let yourself be like a leaf sailing on the river God, a bit of matter and light being swept out to the enormous sacredness of the sea. Let yourself dissolve into it like salt, like snow, like sugar in hot tea. Become what it is, for what it is is who you are, a visible manifestation of an invisible thing."

That’s BIG praying!