Skip to main content
Home
  • About
  • Quotations
  • Newsletters
  • Events
  • Blogs
  • Donate
  • Subscribe
  • Search

I don't know exactly what a prayer is

Mary Oliver
May 2014 (Vol. XXVII, No. 5)

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?

~ excerpt from Mary Oliver's The Summer Day
New And Selected Poems
attention
Buy on Amazon

Newsletter Subscription

There is no cost to have the Friends of Silence monthly letter sent to you each month.

Yes, I want to subscribe!

Donate Now

For the past 35 years, a small band of dedicated friends have poured their hearts and love into Friends of Silence.

Each month we send out the newsletter in print and email to a growing community of over 10,000 people.

The monthly newsletter of contemplative quotes remains free and is made possible by your generosity and support.

If our work brings you any hope and a sense of belonging, then please consider supporting our labor of love with a donation.

And if you’ve already given, from the bottom of our hearts: THANK YOU.

Donate Now

Free Daily Quote

Enjoying the Friends of Silence monthly newsletter? Now you can sign up to receive a free daily quote in your inbox each morning taken from more than 39 years of 422 newsletters and 5,600 quotes on silence and the contemplative path.

Sign Me Up!

Follow Us on Substack

We are now sending out our monthly newsletters from Substack. Join our online community on Substack.  It's free.

Open Substack

Search Quotes

Quotations by Author
Quotations by Source
Quotations by Topic
Try Our Quote Machine!
Get iPhone App

Quote of the Day

When we grow radishes in a small container in a city apartment, we participate in creation. We sustain the globe. When we sweep the street in front of a house in the dirtiest city in the country, we bring new order to the universe. We tidy the Garden of Eden. We make God's world new again. When we repair what has been broken or paint what is old or give away what we have earned that is above and beyond our own sustenance, we stoop down and scoop up the earth and breathe into it new life again, as God did one morning in time only to watch it unfold, unfold, and unfold through the ages.

~ from THERE IS A SEASON by Joan Chittister, thanks to Liz Stewart
 
Purchase from Amazon

Home | About | Quotations | Newsletters | Events | Blogs | Donate | Subscribe | Search

Friends of Silence Friends of Silence | 1681 Patriots Way | Harpers Ferry WV 25425 | Phone: 304-870-4574
Unless otherwise noted, all material © Friends of Silence 2026