Anj sent this to via my comments in reference to my recent post of karma... Oh, Anj, if only I could have written it this beautifully.
I wanted everyone to be sure to see it.
Thank you, Anj, for sending it.


I found this in my inbox this morning and thought of this post - Prayer, or the answer to prayer, is not “interference,” it’s an act in the wonderful web of cause and effect, and everything that follows, in all directions, is other than it would have been without that act. If I accept that the energy, the spiritual power, of prayer is a reality, then prayer matters, is powerful, in ways we don’t understand and can’t predict. It could, if there were enough of it, end wars, as minds are changed. Can it change the weather? How do we know? . . .
So we can say “it is karma,” or “God’s will be done,” or “please, please!” and any of these make sense, because God’s will is another word for the nature of reality, that web of interdependence which is creator and creation. So I just have to accept in amazement that at this unique point of intersection of past and future I can choose to act in a way which will release a power of goodness into all the exchanges of being that flow out from this moment. It may be only a very small “power of goodness”—but how do we know? Can we measure the power of prayer by the worthiness of the one who prays? Since no prayer (no act) is isolated, but all are part of the web of life, who know how powerful even my prayer might be, as it flows in the rivers of the spirit?
All this is a different way of thinking. It carries with it a strange sense of responsibility as well as opportunity. Above all prayer suddenly seems such a natural thing to do, because it simply is part of how things happen.
--excerpt from Gifts in the Ruins by Rosemary Luling Haughton