How We Pray/Prey

“To pray is human, to sing is divine.” Lila Smalls

Why would people who pray prey upon others who want to pray?

There’s a hot debate going on about the building of a community center downtown. I have to admit that at any given moment, I can stand on either side of the fence. In my fearful moments, I fall prey to those perpetrators who warn us that we are not safe from an expanding Moslem world. Most of us have heard stories of people who waited too long to leave Europe because they didn’t see the writing on the wall. I get many emails that support this fear-based philosophy. On the other hand, I want to believe that the numbers of Terrorists do not comprise a threat to our freedom. Like the liberal Jews, the peace-loving, liberal Moslems among us far outweigh the fundamentalists that are the culprits who threaten our freedom.

Worship is a very personal and necessary element of human being-ness. I would argue that even atheists practice worship of nothingness. Why not allow people to pray wherever and however they are comfortable to do so? We at the cell, for example, are from different backgrounds, yet we enjoy communal reverence. Last Sunday, we gathered for our first Soul@ the cell, which we are expanding as a monthly series. The idea is to create an hour of worship through music. What, after all, is more pure and sacred than music? Music brings about a feeling of joy, peace and well being unparalleled by the sermons and mythical stories that are the fodder of human folly. According to our own Pat Jones, music lifts the vibration of the soul. I think it lifts the vibration of the universe. We can pray for peace, or we can be peaceful. Music transports us to the place for which we all pray.