Forms And Views

All our forms and views
Of the Way of our Lord,
Have their test in prayer.
Lose the importunity of prayer;
Reduce it to a soliloquy,
Or even to colloquy;
Lose the real conflict,
Of will struggling with Will;
Lose the reality of wrestling,
And the hope of prevailing
On our knees with the Father:
Make it a mere walking with God,
In casual friendly talk only;
And, as precious as that may be;
We tend, in time, to lose,
The sublime reality of prayer as
The soul's great interaction with Him.
We lose the food of character;
Leading to the renewal of the will:
We may have beautiful prayers;
But they are as fleeting, and
As ineffectual as simple beauty
Oftentime turns out to be.
Elementary conversational prayer;
If not augmented by substantial
Hours on our knees in importunity;
Turns faith into mere assent,
And belays our abilities to
Truly seek out and lay hold of God;
In the end, we lose both
The intimacy and the reality
Of our faith.