Trying Too Hard To Pray

PERMIT ME TO break an unbreakable rule, and tell you about a dream I had. I'm at the senior center for lunch, as usual. its Thanksgiving, but the crowd is surprisingly sparse. I raise my hand, and remind the dozen or so diners that is time to pray, for they seem to have forgotten. But lunch is served, and after a few bites it occurs to me that we have still not prayed, have skipped a mandatory offering of thanks. So, frantically rushing to save the day, I stand without permission and begin to pray, hastily trying to assemble my thoughts as I rise to my feet, finding it difficult and confusing. But I know what I want to say. I want to tell my personal, pantheistic God that I and we all adore her, and that we at least vaguely comprehend the miraculous beauty of existence, with our weak and transitory understanding. We are grateful for our own lives, and for the awesome wondrous cosmos in which we are placed by your loving, beneficent kindness. I want to say that as we all engage in the ceaseless struggle to improve ourselves, we humbly, gratefully accept whatever guidance we might be fortunate enough to receive. I recall vaguely, as I slept, thinking of Einstein's words: "my religiosity consists in humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit which reveals itself in what little, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality."..there is so much to say, about love, admiration, and wonder, but not to the hateful, psychotic, vain, petty mass murdering biblical God, but to the beautiful God of eternity, whose name is nature, cosmos, and universe. I figure the Pentecostals and Baptist's and fundamentalists'll never know the difference, and if they do, what of it? Even they can learn something new. But I can't speak. I can't get the words out. My voice will simply not work. I start to panic, and the small gathering start to glance at me dubiously. I've had the same dream state scenario before, in which I cannot speak.sublimation of years of people saying "huh?" I real life, I have long acquired the habit of speaking slowly, deliberately, with affected clarity, and to speak more sparingly. years of teaching and the burden of "huh' have driven to to it. When i woke p from this semi nightmare, i was much relieved. maybe in my dreams I express my frustration, just as I and many people dream that we are flying as an expression of our hopes. Soon I may even be able to offer the blessing at the senior center, in real life.