The champa trees, with their slender, graceful, lower trunks, are nature’s scattered candelabra. Tiny, white flowers in multiple flames are easily visible as the trees’ long, narrow, deep-green leaves drop in winter. Only now, as we enter summer, are the champa rejoicing in new, miniscule leaves.
Different from these flame-like petals is the tear drop glow of a wax candle. Reading about ways of prayer, I learned some people, while sitting, will find the quiet calm of religious or spiritual moments by meditating on a single, white lit candle.
Others with song, dance, and instrumentals must make sound, move in rhythms and patterns, or, perhaps, merely sway feeling an inner flood of intimacy with God.
Distinct from candle-gazing and expressiveness, is the driver, passing a building memorializing a higher power, who nods or raises a hand to the center of the chest, fingers lightly touching or forming the sign of the cross.
Reading this about prayer caused me to remember those I know who keep candles in their homes, and those I’ve seen turn their heads as they pass a church, a temple, or synagogue, a spiritual center, shrine, or statue. And I affirmed my place with those who feel music making our muscles move.
My realization is, “The ways of prayer, while formed into different patterns, are numberless as every moment’s movement with a thought of God is prayer.”