When I was young, I was brought up religious and each morning I would begin the day with a 5-minute or so prayer to God, and each evening I would say a 1-minute prayer. When I got older and became an atheist, I, naturally, stopped saying the prayers.
I have come to realize recently that the prayers had more than just religious meaning. They also brought me important secular benefits:
* They were palliative, calming my spirit, healing my psychological setbacks and wounds, and allowing me to enter the day's work enlivened and inspired, and my rest time, composed and relaxed.
* They prioritized my focus on various aspects of my life, very clearly placing at the peak the preciousness of life, and the splendid power I have as to how to live it.
* They endowed me with feelings of positivity, the ability to solve life's problems, the great likelihood of success in my endeavors.
* They kindled love in my soul for all the beauties of life in my life.
* They heightened my sense of self.
To recapture the serene healings of prayer, in all its manifestations, I quietLy and alone begin and end each day now with my silent reflections on the glory of my life. Unlike my childhood prayers, they are not the same each day, but are fashioned anew from the feelings within my soul. I know no more from whence they come.
I have found my reflections to be, as were my prayers, the pathway to my entering a spiritual dimension, where the enduring wisdom and rewards of life are to be found.
This morning's reflection, in part:
"I have awakened. The day has awakened. I am a part of the day, a part of nature, the infinity of goodness, which abounds. The painting of my life is replete with faces and stories, sentiments and passions, and I shall embellish it yet more today.
"What is that new color over there? Something I learned yesterday, something yet unclear, something, perhaps, I shall refine today. Yesterday's travails are muted and gone. I am blessed, for each day my will, my courage, my strength, are unabated and brimful.
"It is time to celebrate the grand creation."
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