“All the classical things that have been said about prayer are true—petition, praise, adoration, communion, conversion. But one’s notion of God and divinity has to be sufficiently empty, its mystery sufficiently accounted for, or else prayer becomes exploitation of the divine.

Prayer only makes sense in a paradoxical presence of both human pain and desire on the one hand, and divine infinitude on the other.”

Thomas Moore

I think Moore is saying that if we have it all figured out, we are lost. Prayer, as with all thought of God and the divine, has to be open to something different than our intentional perception or desire. If not, then we use our prayers and divine perceptions to exploit reality only for our desires. Surely we will always have desires as to the way we want God to work in our lives; yet spiritual depth allows us to let go of these desires to the greater mystery of God.

May we let go to the mystery of God in all aspects of our lives!