Today’s Prayer to Passage will be derived from ‘Webster’s New World Dictionary and Thesaurus’ compiled by the Editors of Webster’s New World Dictionaries, with Editor in Chief Michael Agnes.

I pray, “Dear God, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’ What is Your Word in this moment today? Amen.”

I concentrated on the closed book following my prayer. I opened the book to the page of today’s passage. My eyes were guided to this:

“prayer
n. one who prays”

First, I need to acknowledge what a shock it was to see the word prayer when I opened the dictionary and my eyes. This is the very first time I have looked at the word prayer and seen it in the definition that God has now delivered. This is exactly where my eyes landed upon opening the book. And it is the first definition on the page. The previous page has a prelude to today’s definition of prayer. I have always seen the word prayer as a noun regarded on the previous page; the act of prayer, praying. I have not thought of prayer as a noun regarded in today’s definition; I am the prayer, I am the one who is praying.

Other words that could be synonymous with prayer by today’s definition of the noun are: intercessor, petitioner, beseecher, contemplative, and supplicant. My name is not in the dictionary, yet I am one who prays. I am a prayer. Today, in this moment, God acknowledges me in one word. Prayer is beyond our understanding, however, the one who prays is fully known by God. When I pray, I am sharing myself with God. When God receives my prayer, there is nothing to share because all becomes fully connected.

Last night, I happened to catch a public television documentary on Mother Teresa. I fell asleep before attaining much of an offering from it. What I was able to see so clearly was that Mother Teresa was a PRAY-ER, respective of all of the other gifts she shared with the world during her lifetime. She was a prayer first. In the beginning was her word, and her word was with God, and her word was God. Someone who knew Mother Teresa stated in an interview that there was a time in her life when she was so deeply involved in her practice of prayer that she began to question the existence of God entirely.

As a prayer, Mother Teresa’s connection with God became so melded and intertwined that she had God within her as a part of her. If and when she doubted, it may have been in the moments that God was so near that she could no longer sense God’s Presence. God became so immediate that God passed from a known and believed realm into her. This passage from a partitioned aspect of God to a united experience of God could establish in humans a very complex entanglement. The truth is, in this entanglement, never has God been closer.