This Praying Of Mine

I don’t know what my prayer accomplishes, but I find it helps with connections. In the most direct sense, if I find myself thinking of Aunt Sally or the pre-schooler across the street in prayer, I feel connected to them somehow. And, while it might not help Aunt Sally’s cancer or the pre-schooler’s lack of drug-free parents, I still feel it’s genuinely useful. Praying keeps me connected.

It’s about one of the few things I can say I “believe” in: that we are connected to one another by invisible threads. More than just sharing the same time and space and reality (of which I often have doubts,) there is that mutual energy, that common breath among us, that goes beyond what the five senses recognize. And I tend to think that energy----both positive and negative--- flows back and forth on those unseen threads---- Kind of like the internet without the pictures of kittens.
I guess I believe that my praying is not just an inside thing, but affects what is around me: Again, not miracle working or problem solving, but a strengthening of that connection thing. The brain is constantly aglow with synapses firing and relay switches turning on and off, reminding me to buy groceries, but also reminding me of a beautiful piece of music. To jump from a “lobe” to a “globe” is not that hard. Philosophers and physicists have been talking about this for decades.