The pure, the bright, The beautiful that stirred our hearts in youth, The impulses to wordless prayer, The streams of love and truth, The longing after something lost, The spirit's yearning cry, The striving after better hopes; These things can never die. The timid hand stretched forth to aid a brother in his need, A kindly word in grief's dark hour that proves a friend indeed; The plea for mercy softly breathed, When justice threatens high, The sorrow of a contrite heart; These things shall never die, shall never die. Let nothing pass, For every hand must find some work to do, Lose not a chance to waken love. Be firm and just and true, So shall a light that cannot fade beam on thee from on high, And angel voices say to thee; These things can never die.
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For I do not believe God means us thus to divide life into two halves - to wear a grave face on Sunday, and to think it out-of-place to even so much as mention Him on a week-day. Do you think He cares to see only kneeling figures and to hear only tones of prayer - and that He does not also love to see the lambs leaping in the sunlight, and to hear the merry voices of the children, as they roll amoung the hay? Surely their innocent laughter is as sweet in His ears as the grandest anthem that ever rolled up from the "dim religious light" of some solemn cathedral?
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It is not a carol of joy or glee, But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,...
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God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers and thrust the thing we have prayed for in our face, like a gauntlet with a gift in it.
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When you remember me, it means that you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me. It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart. For as long as you remember me, I am never entirely lost. When I'm feeling most ghost-like, it is your remembering me that helps remind me that I actually exist. When I'm feeling sad, it's my consolation. When I'm feeling happy, it's part of why I feel that way. If you forget me, one of the ways I remember who I am will be gone. If you forget, part of who I am will be gone. Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. the good thief said from his cross (Luke 23:42). There are perhaps no more human words in all of Scripture, no prayer we can pray so well.
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For I do not believe God means us thus to divide life into two halves - to wear a grave face on Sunday, and to think it out-of-place to even so much as mention Him on a week-day. Do you think He cares to see only kneeling figures and to hear only tones of prayer - and that He does not also love to see the lambs leaping in the sunlight, and to hear the merry voices of the children, as they roll amoung the hay? Surely their innocent laughter is as sweet in His ears as the grandest anthem that ever rolled up from the 'dim religious light' of some solemn cathedral?
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Christmas--that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance--a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved.
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Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage, And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age:...
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We thank you, Almighty God, for the gift of water. Over it the Holy Spirit moved in the beginning of creation. Through it you led the children of Israel out of their bondage in Egypt into the land of promise. In it your Son Jesus received the baptism of John and we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit.
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Prayer is an august avowal of ignorance.
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To give thanks in solitude is enough. Thanksgiving has wings and goes where it must go. Your prayer knows much more about it than you do.
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Prayer is translation. A man translates himself into a child asking for all there is in a language he has barely mastered.
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Prayer Changes Things
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Now stamp the Lord's Prayer on a grain of rice, A Bible-leaved of all the written woods...
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Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day - like writing a poem, or saying a prayer.
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We must not sit still and look for miracles; up and doing, and the Lord will be with thee. Prayer and pains, through faith in Christ Jesus, will do anything.
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And the wind said May you be as strong as the oak, yet flexible as the birch may you stand as tall as the redwood, live gracefully as the willow and may you always bear fruit all your days on this earth.
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We know little of the things for which we pray.
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Everybody prays whether you think of it as praying or not. The odd silence you fall into when something very beautiful is happening or something very good or very bad. The ah-h-h-h! that sometimes floats up out of you as out of a Fourth of July crowd when the sky-rocket bursts over the water. The stammer of pain at somebody else's pain. The stammer of joy at somebody else's joy. Whatever words or sounds you use for sighing with over your own life. These are all prayers in their way. These are all spoken not just to yourself but to something even more familiar than yourself and even more strange than the world.
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In the Lords prayer, the first petition is for daily bread; no one can worship God, or love his neighbor on an empty stomach.
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Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening.
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'Fenced early in this cloistral round Of reverie, of shade, of prayer,...
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Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He comet up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.
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Prayer should be the key of the day and the lock of the night.
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Do you fear that you will not (be able to) give in charity before your consultation? So when you do not do it and Allah has turned to you (mercifully), then keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate and obey Allah and His Apostle; and Allah is Aware of wh
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Surely man is created of a hasty temperament / Being greatly grieved when evil afflicts him / And niggardly when good befalls him / Except those who pray, / Those who are constant at their prayer / And those in whose wealth there is a fixed portion.
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Business underlies everything in our national life, including our spiritual life. Witness the fact that in the Lord's Prayer, the first petition is for daily bread. No one can worship God or love his neighbor on an empty stomach.
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That high All-seer which I dallied with Hath turned my feigned prayer on my head, And given in earnest what I begged in jest.
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The law demands good works and uses its terror--rejection, shame, fear of punishment, unanswered prayer, personal tragedy, etc.--as motivation. Here performance is a necessity to secure the blessings and avoid the curses. Grace, on the other hand, allows us to serve on a different basis--not from fear but on the basis of love and gratitude, from appreciation and gladness for blessings freely given and freely received.
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If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, thank you, that would suffice.
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