TIMELESS PRAYERS FOR UNITY AND PEACE

Yesterday, after attending a Memorial Day ceremony in our community, my thoughts expanded to a private commemoration in my heart. It was a reminiscing and missing of all my family members who have died.

My grandmother stood out among them.

When I saw this quote from Abraham Lincoln about his mother's prayers, I saw a connection of three pieces.

The first piece was that a portion of Lincoln's Address at Gettysburg was cited at the service. Hearing Lincoln's famous words lifted me to hope that our ideals of equality, freedom, and the power of We The People will not be lost and that our sense of unity will be restored.

The second piece was the prominence of my grandmother in my private remembrance.

The third piece connected the first two. When I happened upon Lincoln's quote about his mother, I felt a kinship with him. My grandmother's prayers affect me to this day.

When I was a young child, my Grandma Gorda told me how she prayed every day for me and for all our family here in America.

She also prayed for all our family back in the old country, which was Czechoslovakia at the time. She knew of just a few specific people there. But she also knew that families grow and that we are connected even if we are far apart, even if we don't even meet.

She prayed for all family members here and there, all the living, all who would come into the world, and all who departed. Then she prayed for the whole world and for peace.

Without being able to describe it back then, my grandmother gave me a expanded sense of time and how we are all connected.

Not only am I affected by her because I now pray in a similar way. But I feel as if her timeless, endless prayers touch me every day. I feel as if her loving prayers reach my own grandchildren and that they will go on to reach theirs.

May loving prayers be touching all of your family too.

May we someday soon see that we are one human family, one with nature too, and live together in peace.

May we live this day as if it is so.

With love, kindness, and reverence,

Charlene