To pray is to pay attention to something or someone other than oneself. Whenever we so concentrate our attention that we completely forget our own ego and desires, we are praying.
~ W. H. Auden
Our life has not been an ascent
up one side of a mountain and down the other.
We did not reach a peak,
only to decline and die.
We have been as drops of water,
born in the ocean and sprinkled on the earth
in a gentle rain.
We became a spring,
and then a stream,
and finally a river flowing deeper and stronger,
nourishing all it touches
as it nears its home once again.