“Prayer as a Way to Penetrate the Mystery,” by Andrew J. Schatkin

“Prayer as a Way to Penetrate the Mystery,” by Andrew J. Schatkin

Ladies and Gentlemen and my fellow Christians and non- Christians, I now seek to understand the essential mystery of life as we try to grasp and understand it in prayer. We all think after living for a time and come to the conclusion that our lives, what we are doing here on the earth, why we are here, where we are going, and, finally, why we die, and what happens to us after our death, are a great mystery. For some, there are those who see our lives and our destiny as founded on our animal beings and based on our being a mass of atoms and molecules. Yet we know we think, we see, we feel, and some of us have talents that bring us to the eternal and divine, whether artists or great writers or great thinkers and poets such as John Milton and Bertrand Russell. Does what we do with our lives mean nothing and is everything disintegration? In short, for us all if we give any thought to the matter there is a vast and great mystery connected with existence and not to reach that conclusion and to think in terms of one's next car, next pair of designer sneakers, and one's next girlfriend, or think in solely material terms and terminology, is to think in and with shallowness. And so prayer is an attempt to reach and understand the essential mystery of life of a life beyond the immediate. In prayer, we to reach the level of being if you will the spiritual realm that we know and sense exists. Prayer is the bridge to penetrating the mystery of life. It is the way to gain grasp of who we are, how we should live, and perhaps grasp what is the fate that may await us all.