AN EXTRAORDINARY PRAYER

Notes found in a box long unopened.
by Charlie Leck

I found a box upon a shelf in an infrequently visited closet. The box, which has traveled with me from place to place and life to life, had not been opened in years. I found, upon opening the box, a pile of notes to myself that I had hoped, when I put them there, I would one day find and shuffle through with some curiosity. They were about matters that, back then, I had thought important and that I had hoped, back then, that I would find important at that future time when I opened the box.

One is a note about a prayer that, back then, I thought terribly meaningful and inspiring. I still do, I guess, and so I'll share it with you. It was composed by a Danish theologian and philospher, Soren Kierkegaard.

"Father in Heaven! What is a man without Thee? What is all that he knows, vast accumulation though it be, but a chipped fragment if he does not know Thee? What is all his striving, could it even encompass the world, but half-finished work if he does not know Thee? Thee the One, who art one thing and who art all."

I cry out with Saint John: "I know Thee!"

"Now by this we may be sure that we know him, if we obey his commandments. Whoever says, 'I have come to know him,' but does not obey his commandments is a liar, and in such a person the truth does not exist; but whoever obeys his word, truly in this person the love of God has reached perfection. By this we may be sure that we are in him: whoever says, 'I abide in Him,' ought to walk just as he walked.

"Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word that you have heard. Yet I am writing you a new commandment that is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says, 'I am in the light,' while hating a brother or sister, is still in the darkness. Whoever loves a brother or sister lives in the light, and in such a person there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates another believer is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and does not know the way to go, because the darkness has brought on blindness..."

"...let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love."

Enough for a full day? Indeed!