On Prayer

Prayer helps with life, and especially with life where there is grief. On the topic of prayer, I really liked this set of quotes, provided by Ozarque:

The Winter 2007-2008 issue of _Image_ [website at http://imagejournal.org ], has a wonderful interview with Mary Karr, conducted by Brennan O'Donnell, on the relationship between Karr's religious faith and her writing; it's on pages 83-95. On pp. 91-92, talking about her prayer life, Karr says:

"Within a couple of years I made the prayer of Saint Francis a regular prayer: 'Make me an instrument of your peace...' I was making decisions based on prayer, like whether or not to get a divorce -- that was something I had prayed about for years. I didn't have a sense of what to do, but I did pray about it. I prayed about what to write, and I prayed about what job to take. My life got a lot better. That's what I tell people when they say they don't believe but they want to believe. I say, 'Pray every day for thirty days and see if your life gets better.' It's ironic how people will argue with you about that, as though it will cost them something, as though you're trying to trick them into something. I say, 'No, just do it and see if you feel like I do. Maybe you won't.' "

And on page 92...

"I had not been baptized when _Liar's Club_ came out, but I did have a sense of having been spiritually snatched out of the fire. Prayer had become a place I could go. I was single, I had a kid, I had nine jobs, I had no money -- but I could go to that place and feel that there was something there that was not me, that was going to help me pick the next right thing to do."