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"Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view." Ralph Waldo Emerson I remember growing up that prayer was the time when I would be in need and I would beseech an outside entity to please hear my plea and aid my call. It was definitely a child/parent relationship. If I could just find the right way to ask for it, the parent would grant my wish. But then as I got older it changed, the whole pray and though shalt receive didn't seem to be working out so well, and besides, who said I really know what is best for me anyways. Creating the world in my own image is so limiting. I mean reality has much more imagination than I do. Why limit myself? So then I studied Eastern religions and their method of prayer was meditation, where I learned to find peace no matter what was going on around me or no matter what lack I might perceive that needed to be filled. An hour of meditation a day seemed to make all things fall into place, to help me gain perception and learn how to be grateful instead of needy. What a better place to come from. So no matter what name you give it, prayer, meditation or just being, Emerson said it best: It is a time for me to contemplate the facts of my life from an out of body point of view. Now if I could just find that hour a day that I need...

I always thought that reaching enlightenment would require years of practice, hours of meditation and daily yoga, fasting, unlimited service hours and much much more! However, someone explained it to me that enlightenment comes one moment at a time. Everyone has had at least one moment of enlightenment, one moment of intense love, bliss, or happiness. It is what gives us hope to carry on. Like the most intense connection with someone else or the perfect golf shot, it is why we come back again and again. If we have experienced it once we know it can happen again. So someone wiser than I explained enlightenment as the ability to have those moments more and more often. And each time they come we strive to make them last longer and longer until one day they merge together and we live in an eternal state of love, bliss or happiness (however you define enlightenment). Now that is a goal I can work towards and just think of the fun I will have along the way! Won't you join me? In service, Sheryl