Prayer Beads Quotes

Chanting is no more holy than listening to the murmur of a stream, couting prayer beads no more scared than simply breathing, religious robed no more spiritual than work clothes.

I have always, essentially, been waiting. Waiting to become something else, waiting to be that person I always thought I was on the verge of becoming, waiting for that life I thought I would have. In my head, I was always one step away. In high school, I was biding my time until I could become the college version of myself, the one my mind could see so clearly. In college, the post-college “adult” person was always looming in front of me, smarter, stronger, more organized. Then the married person, then the person I’d become when we have kids. For twenty years, literally, I have waited to become the thin version of myself, because that’s when life will really begin. And through all that waiting, here I am. My life is passing, day by day, and I am waiting for it to start. I am waiting for that time, that person, that event when my life will finally begin. I love movies about “The Big Moment” – the game or the performance or the wedding day or the record deal, the stories that split time with that key event, and everything is reframed, before it and after it, because it has changed everything. I have always wanted this movie-worthy event, something that will change everything and grab me out of this waiting game into the whirlwind in front of me. I cry and cry at these movies, because I am still waiting for my own big moment. I had visions of life as an adventure, a thing to be celebrated and experienced, but all I was doing was going to work and coming home, and that wasn’t what it looked like in the movies. John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” For me, life is what was happening while I was busy waiting for my big moment. I was ready for it and believed that the rest of my life would fade into the background, and that my big moment would carry me through life like a lifeboat. The Big Moment, unfortunately, is an urban myth. Some people have them, in a sense, when they win the Heisman or become the next American Idol. But even that football player or that singer is living a life made up of more than that one moment. Life is a collection of a million, billion moments, tiny little moments and choices, like a handful of luminous, glowing pearl. It takes so much time, and so much work, and those beads and moments are so small, and so much less fabulous and dramatic than the movies. But this is what I’m finding, in glimpses and flashes: this is it. This is it, in the best possible way. That thing I’m waiting for, that adventure, that move-score-worthy experience unfolding gracefully. This is it. Normal, daily life ticking by on our streets and sidewalks, in our houses and apartments, in our beds and at our dinner tables, in our dreams and prayers and fights and secrets – this pedestrian life is the most precious thing any of use will ever experience.

...every vertebrae on his back was a prayer bead under my hands.

She spoke with all the authority vested in her by her flea-market prayer beads and her lotus-flower tramp stamp.

The true devotees of God never wear saffron, carry malas (prayer beads), or put on sandalwood. You can’t know them unless they want it, and then you can only know them as much as they allow.

Read me like your favourite book, word for word. Sing me like your favourite song, beat for beat. Take a walk with me in your dreams, hand in hand. Chant me like a prayer, bead for bead. Hold me in your arms like I am magic, dark, cursed yet loveable. Love me the way no one has ever been loved before.

THOSE EARLY DAYS AT Canaan House spaced themselves out like beads on a prayer string, dilated.

The Believers come with their guns, their prayer beads and their own Destroy-Yourselves Manual.

This was definitely a former cellar. One the far end was a shoddy, rickety altar that cavemen might have erected to worship a fire god. Two wooden columns flanked a large stone block cut into a perfect cube on a raised platform. On the left wall was a table that looked like cheap plastic lawn furniture covered with incense and prayer beads and other generic-looking knickknacks that someone could buy at a yoga studio. "Oh my God, my cult is so low-rent," moaned Magnus. "I am deeply shamed. I am disowning my followers for being evil and having no panache." "But it's not your cult," Alec said distractedly. He walked over to the side table and ran his finger along its surface. "There's a lot of dust. This place hadn't been used in a while." "I'm joking." said Magnus.

There is a value in repetition. When we repeat certain phrases and even actions, like fingering prayer beads, we create a quiet rhythm within our spirits. The beating of our heart is a repetition as is the rhythm of our breathing. All of life has its rhythms, and the repetition of familiar prayers can bring our interior spirits into harmony with the Divine Heartbeat and the breathing of the Divine Christ.

The journey through another world, beyond bad dreams beyond the memories of a murdered generation, cartographed in captivity by bare survivors makes sacristans of us all. The old ones go our bail, we oblate preachers of our tribes. Be careful, they say, don't hock the beads of kinship agonies; the moire-effect of unfamiliar hymns upon our own, a change in pitch or shrillness of the voice transforms the ways of song to words of poetry or prose and makes distinctions no one recognizes. Surrounded and absorbed, we tread like Etruscans on the edge of useless law; we pray to the giver of prayer, we give the cane whistle in ceremony, we swing the heavy silver chain of incense burners. Migration makes new citizens of Rome.

Mirabai composed many ecstatic songs which are still treasured in India; I translate one of them here: “If by bathing daily God could be realised Sooner would I be a whale in the deep; If by eating roots and fruits He could be known Gladly would I choose the form of a goat; If the counting of rosaries uncovered Him I would say my prayers on mammoth beads; If bowing before stone images unveiled Him A flinty mountain I would humbly worship; If by drinking milk the Lord could be imbibed Many calves and children would know Him; If abandoning one’s wife would summon God Would not thousands be eunuchs? Mirabai knows that to find the Divine One The only indispensable is Love.

She had no need in her heart for either book or magazine. She had her own way of escape, her own passage into contentment: her rosary. That string of white beads, the tiny links worn in a dozen places and held together by strands of white thread which in turn broke regularly, was, bead for bead, her quiet flight out of the world. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. And Maria began to climb. Bead for bead, life and living fell away. Hail Mary, Hail Mary. Dream without sleep encompassed her. Passion without flesh lulled her. Love without death crooned the melody of belief. She was away: she was free; she was no longer Maria, American or Italian, poor or rich, with or without electric washing machines and vacuum cleaners; here was the land of all-possessing. Hail Mary, Hail Mary, over and over, a thousand and a hundred thousand times, prayer upon prayer, the sleep of the body, the escape of the mind, the death of memory, the slipping away of pain, the deep silent reverie of belief. Hail Mary and Hail Mary. It was for this that she lived.

We all came to the Big Oakland Powwow for different reasons. The messy, dangling strands of our lives got pulled into a braid—tied to the back of everything we’d been doing all along to get us here. We’ve been coming from miles. And we’ve been coming for years, generations, lifetimes, layered in prayer and handwoven regalia, beaded and sewn together, feathered, braided, blessed, and cursed.

With his pendulous penis swinging from side to side, the beast clip-clopped up a rickety flight of stairs led by Pablo Zapata's wife, who took him through a beaded curtain into a room where a bevy of sullen women reclined on tatty sofas. A collective gasp rang out among the group and many crossed themselves in silent prayer.

Dare I hint at that worse time when, strung together somewhere in great black space, there was a flaming necklace, or ring, or starry circle of some kind, of which I was one of the beads! And when my only prayer was to be taken off from the rest, and when it was such inexplicable agony and misery to be a part of the dreadful thing?

Everyone watching over his shoulder, Free French plotting revenge on Vichy traitors, Lublin Communists drawing beads on Varsovian shadow-ministers, ELAS Greeks stalking royalists, unrepatriable dreamers of all languages hoping through will, fist, prayer to bring back kings, republics, pretenders, summer anarchisms that perished before the first crops were in . . . some dying wretchedly, nameless, under ice-and-snow surfaces of bomb craters out in the East End not to be found till spring, some chronically drunk or opiated for getting through the day's reverses, most somehow losing, losing what souls they had, less and less able to trust, seized in the game's unending chatter, its daily self-criticism, its demand for total attention . . .

Dualistic thinking is a sickness. Religion is a distortion. Materialism is cruel. Blind spirituality is unreal. Chanting is no more holy than listening to the murmur of a stream, counting prayer beads no more sacred than simply breathing, religious robes no more spiritual than work clothes. If you wish to attain oneness with the Tao, don't get caught up in spiritual superficialities. Instead, live a quiet and simple life, free of ideas and concepts. Find contentment in the practice of undiscriminating virtue, the only true power. Giving to others selflessly and anonymously, radiating light throughout the world and illuminating your own darknesses, your virtue becomes a sanctuary for yourself and all beings. This is what is meant by embodying the Tao.

I stood between her and Jenna. So she punched me instead. I punched her back. Right now, my mother was reciting her nightly mala bead prayers to cleanse me of my violent tendencies. Not enough chanting in the world, Mom.

The Quakers pray as the spirit moves them; but to let oneself be moved by the spirit is an arduous business. Kindlier and more worldly churches, with a feeling for human weakness, provide their worshipers with rituals, litanies, beads and prayer wheels.

To most Westerners, the Philippines suffers from a lack of exoticism. Simply put, Philippine culture is just too accessible. To a young Western backpacker, sharing a bus ride with a saffron-robed Buddhist monk reading the sacred Pali texts is exotic. Sitting next to a Catholic nun reading the Bible is a lot less so. When the Buddhist monk takes out his prayer beads, closes his eyes, and chants under his breath, the Westerner swoons. When the Catholic nun pulls out her rosary and says her Hail Marys, the backpacker squirms.

She was like a practical priest, someone to whom one could confess things—fears, hopes, mistakes—and expect in return, not a simpleton’s recipe for prayers and beads, or a psychologist’s standard “And how does that make you feel?” runaround, but actual wisdom. How to get on with the business at hand. How to survive.

That day...I watched Tohru pick up my scattered beads. I couldn’t find any words to say. Among other things, they were proof of the monster I’d been. I thought I wouldn’t have minded just leaving them to rot. But at the same time...I had this feeling that someday down the line, I might regret not picking them up. Even so, I couldn’t move. So she picked ‘em up instead. It felt like she was protecting both the present and future me. Or maybe...it was even more than that. Maybe she wanted to protect something bigger. Maybe she was trying to save all those feelings from far away...of every poor soul who had to wear a string of prayer beads just so they could live their lives.

Body Prayer We must hunker down into the “Body of Hope and Resurrection” (Philippians 3:9–11; 1 Corinthians 15:44) and pray also from below and from within, on a cellular and energetic level too—or the attitude of prayer does not last or go deep. You are not thinking your prayer as much as energetically feeling your prayer. You pay attention from the bottom up and from the inside out. Rest into the Body of Christ energy instead of trying to pull an Infinite God into your finite world. Your body itself receives and knows, and is indeed “a temple” (1 Corinthians 3:16–17) where God dwells in the Spirit. Walking meditation, yoga, and breathing exercises are all helpful here. Body prayer actually works much more quickly and more naturally than thought prayer alone. Body prayer is what we have tried to do with inspiring music, body gestures, and all sacraments, so this is not a new idea. It is what many are seeking in tai chi, pilgrimages, prayer beads, chanting, repeating the Jesus Prayer until it prays itself in us and through us, and so on. To “pray from the clay” will also move you to the shared level of prayer. You will know that “you” are not doing the prayer, but you are falling into the unified field, and the Body of Christ is now praying through you (Romans 8:26–27) and with you. It becomes “our” prayer, and not just my prayer. Now you pray not so much to Christ as much as through Christ, and you will know experientially that you are Christ's Body too.

Why, observe the thing; turn it over; hold it up to the window; count the beads, long, oval, like some seaweed bulbs, each an amulet. See the tint; it's very old; like clots of sunshine, aren't they? Now bring it near; see the carving, here corrugated, there faceted, now sculptured into hideous, tiny, heathen gods. You didn't notice that before! How difficult it must have been, when amber is so friable! Here's one with a chessboard on his back, and all his kings and queens and pawns slung round him. Here's another with a torch, a flaming torch, its fire pouring out inverted. They are grotesque enough; but this, this is matchless: such a miniature woman, one hand grasping the round rock behind, while she looks down into some gulf, perhaps, beneath, and will let herself fall. 0, you should see her with a magnifying-glass! You want to think of calm satisfying death, a mere exhalation, a voluntary slipping into another element? There it is for you. They are all gods and goddesses. They are all here but one; I've lost one, the knot of all, the love of the thing. Well! Wasn't it queer for a Catholic girl to have at prayer?

I remembered the malangs of Shah Jamal, the dirty, shirtless renouncers with ratty beards and dreads and bare chests covered in necklaces of prayer beads, throwing around their arms in Charlie Manson dances and whipping out their old ID cards to say look, I used to be someone and now I'm no one, I'm so lost in Allah that I've thrown away the whole world. Would that qualify them as Sufis? I didin't know how to measure it. Whether the malangs were Sufi saints or just drugged-out bums didn't really matter. The lesson I took from them was that you're never disqualified from loving Allah, never. And I could see again that what I went through was nothing new, not even anything special in the history of Islam, not a clashing of East and West; it was always there. And that made me feel more Muslim than ever, because fuck it all, CNN, this is Islam too.

Lady Isabeau was tall for a woman, nearly as tall as Molly, but slender where Molly was stout, with a smooth immobile face that looked as if it had been carved from ivory, pale and serene. Hob stared at her: glossy black hair bound about the brows with a broad white linen fillet and partly concealed by a veil that draped down her neck; dark eyes beneath dark brows plucked thin; unsmiling lips, full and well-shaped. There was so little expression on her face, and its beauty was so unworldly, that Hob had a moment when he thought her an apparition, or a graven figure. “Blanche comme la neige,” came to his mind, a song Molly had taught him, “belle comme le jour.” The thinnest of scars ran from her hairline down her forehead, divided her left eyebrow, and curved along her cheek to the corner of her mouth, and seemed at once to augment her beauty and to reinforce its carven stillness, as if some wright's chisel had slipped in the course of fashioning her visage. A linen band of the sort known as a barbette ran down from the fillet at her temples and passed under her chin, framing her face, and rendering her features all the more austere. Her gown was a muted purple; heavy embroidery of red and blue circled its neckline, and it was gathered by a zone of gray silk, sewn with pearls, that circled her hips. From this belt depended a silver ring, as wide around as a big man's fist. On the ring was a bunch of black iron keys, of varying sizes: the symbol and reality of her standing as administrator of the household. As she spoke, she fiddled with the keys as though they were prayer beads; they gave off a continual muted clink, just barely audible to Hob above the rumble of voices, the thuds and thumps of plank tabletops settling onto their trestles.

My sour cherry liqueur is especially popular, though I feel a little guilty that I cannot remember the cherry's name. The secret is to leave the stones in. Layer cherries and sugar one on the other in a widemouthed glass jar, covering each layer gradually with clear spirit (kirsch is best, but you can use vodka or even Armagnac) up to half the jar's capacity. Top up with spirit and wait. Every month, turn the jar carefully to release any accumulated sugar. In three years' time the spirit has bled the cherries white, itself stained deep red now, penetrating even to the stone and the tiny almond inside it, becoming pungent, evocative, a scent of autumn past. Serve in tiny liqueur glasses, with a spoon to scoop out the cherry, and leave it in the mouth until the macerated fruit dissolves under the tongue. Pierce the stone with the point of a tooth to release the liqueur trapped inside and leave it for along time in the mouth, playing it with the tip of the tongue, rolling it under, over, like a single prayer bead. Try to remember the time of its ripening, that summer, that hot autumn, the time the well ran dry, the time we had the wasp's nests, time past, lost, found again in the hard place at the heart of the fruit...

Mirabai composed many ecstatic songs, which are still treasured in India. I translate one of them here: If by bathing daily God could be realized Sooner would I be a whale in the deep; If by eating roots and fruits He could be known Gladly would I choose the form of a goat; If the counting of rosaries uncovered Him I would say my prayers on mammoth beads; If bowing before stone images unveiled Him A flinty mountain I would humbly worship; If by drinking milk the Lord could be imbibed Many calves and children would know Him; If abandoning one’s wife could summon God Would not thousands be eunuchs? Mirabai knows that to find the Divine One The only indispensable is Love. Several

She had no need in her heart for either book or magazine. She had her own way of escape, her own passage into contentment: her rosary. That string of white beads, the tiny links worn in a dozen places and held together by strands of white thread which in turn broke regularly, was, bead for bead, her quiet flight out of the world. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. And Maria began to climb. Bead for bead, life and living fell away. Hail Mary, Hail Mary. Dream without sleep encompassed her. Passion without flesh lulled her. Love without death crooned the memory of belief. She was away: she was free; she was no longer Maria, American or Italian, poor or rich, with or without electric washing machines and vacuum cleaners; here was the land of all-possessing. Hail Mary, Hail Mary, over and over, a thousand and a hundred thousand times, prayer upon prayer, the sleep of the body, the escape of the mind, the death of memory, the slipping away of pain, the deep silent reverie of belief. Hail Mary and Hail Mary. It was for this that she lived.

They’re checking IDs,” he says, craning his neck to see what’s holding us up. I pull mine out of my pocket, and he tilts his head to see the picture on it. “You look different.” “It’s two years old.” I start to lower my arm, and he puts his hand on mine to stop me. “That’s how you used to wear your hair,” he says, still examining it, holding my wrist to keep it where he can see it. “The bangs . . . I always liked the bangs. I was surprised you didn’t have them anymore.” I flush. “I grew them out a couple of summers ago.” He releases my arm. “Did you get a good essay out of it? ‘What I Did Last Summer’?” “I’m saving it for my college essay. ‘How Growing Out My Bangs Taught Me Compassion.’” “Work a third-world country in there somehow,” he says. “Colleges like to see some global awareness.” The line takes us through the front door. “Progress,” Finn says. “Look.” I point to a kid who’s clutching some beads and murmuring to himself. “Is he actually praying right now?” “There are no atheists in the SAT line.” “Remind me to ask him in a few weeks if it helped.” “I’m guessing the success of his prayers will correspond to the number of hours he spent studying.

She felt sweat bead on her forehead, and dug a fingernail into her thumb to stop herself from weeping. She thought about her husband, John, and her two girls. She cursed herself for agreeing to visit the hospital and for not heeding the advice of the deputy director and Tom Dupree. But she still had the presence of mind to know that that wouldn’t help her now, so she did her best to concentrate on counting her breaths. Two minutes later, she decided to survive by whatever means and fought to focus on something more positive to assuage her escalating fear. She told herself that her people would be looking for her, that roadblocks had been set up. They could follow her, after all, at US Air Force bases, via drones, or whatever else they had that even she didn’t know about. Then she did her best to remember what Tom had told her about how to respond if she were ever kidnapped. Do not resist them, she thought. Act upon all reasonable instructions without complaint. Refrain from making retaliatory threats or unrealistic promises. Attempt to build up a rapport, but slowly to avoid it being considered contrived. But then she began to waver again. For now she was in the hands of men with no humanity, who had snuffed out life as most people sprayed mosquitoes or swatted bugs. She knew her see-saw emotions were reasonable in the circumstances. But she had to survive. For John. For her girls. Oh, God, hear my prayer. Help me.

I am speaking of the evenings when the sun sets early, of the fathers under the streetlamps in the back streets returning home carrying plastic bags. Of the old Bosphorus ferries moored to deserted stations in the middle of winter, where sleepy sailors scrub the decks, pail in hand and one eye on the black-and-white television in the distance; of the old booksellers who lurch from one ϧnancial crisis to the next and then wait shivering all day for a customer to appear; of the barbers who complain that men don’t shave as much after an economic crisis; of the children who play ball between the cars on cobblestoned streets; of the covered women who stand at remote bus stops clutching plastic shopping bags and speak to no one as they wait for the bus that never arrives; of the empty boathouses of the old Bosphorus villas; of the teahouses packed to the rafters with unemployed men; of the patient pimps striding up and down the city’s greatest square on summer evenings in search of one last drunken tourist; of the broken seesaws in empty parks; of ship horns booming through the fog; of the wooden buildings whose every board creaked even when they were pashas’ mansions, all the more now that they have become municipal headquarters; of the women peeking through their curtains as they wait for husbands who never manage to come home in the evening; of the old men selling thin religious treatises, prayer beads, and pilgrimage oils in the courtyards of mosques; of the tens of thousands of identical apartment house entrances, their facades discolored by dirt, rust, soot, and dust; of the crowds rushing to catch ferries on winter evenings; of the city walls, ruins since the end of the Byzantine Empire; of the markets that empty in the evenings; of the dervish lodges, the tekkes, that have crumbled; of the seagulls perched on rusty barges caked with moss and mussels, unϩinching under the pelting rain; of the tiny ribbons of smoke rising from the single chimney of a hundred-yearold mansion on the coldest day of the year; of the crowds of men ϧshing from the sides of the Galata Bridge; of the cold reading rooms of libraries; of the street photographers; of the smell of exhaled breath in the movie theaters, once glittering aϱairs with gilded ceilings, now porn cinemas frequented by shamefaced men; of the avenues where you never see a woman alone after sunset; of the crowds gathering around the doors of the state-controlled brothels on one of those hot blustery days when the wind is coming from the south; of the young girls who queue at the doors of establishments selling cut-rate meat; of the holy messages spelled out in lights between the minarets of mosques on holidays that are missing letters where the bulbs have burned out; of the walls covered with frayed and blackened posters; of the tired old dolmuşes, ϧfties Chevrolets that would be museum pieces in any western city but serve here as shared taxis, huϫng and puϫng up the city’s narrow alleys and dirty thoroughfares; of the buses packed with passengers; of the mosques whose lead plates and rain gutters are forever being stolen; of the city cemeteries, which seem like gateways to a second world, and of their cypress trees; of the dim lights that you see of an evening on the boats crossing from Kadıköy to Karaköy; of the little children in the streets who try to sell the same packet of tissues to every passerby; of the clock towers no one ever notices; of the history books in which children read about the victories of the Ottoman Empire and of the beatings these same children receive at home; of the days when everyone has to stay home so the electoral roll can be compiled or the census can be taken; of the days when a sudden curfew is announced to facilitate the search for terrorists and everyone sits at home fearfully awaiting “the oϫcials”; CONTINUED IN SECOND PART OF THE QUOTE

In My Prayer. My silent niche. You incarnate in my prayer. Dawn is all dancing like a rainbow in your smile. Anxious to uncover dreams after morning. The desire to arrange sparkly beads in your hair. Reduce heartbeat, please at the tips of your fingers. I will pray together with night just to keep remembering you. A never ending memory to always say your name. Silence that leads to longing for the rising of light. Horizon knocked on all the gates, which grabbed a reprehensible body, who hesitated to stop at the tip of the tongue. Lips murmuring, stringing questions hung at the end of time. The self that is always broken and dishonest, who is kufr and who is infidel. All beings submit to the most holy feet. Let silence accept everything that is magical. Although the reflection of the moon's face is filled with wounds with lies in our mouths, betrayed by lust and unstoppable desires. May you soon incarnate so that a million flowers bloom in the heart of the most cursory. The eyes are altered, betraying a million flashes of light from the darkest night. The most beautiful gems are buried in mud puddles. Even though the sky is still dark. Heavy rain that is redder than all blood. Which surpassed the fangs of the old snake. The endless cycle of the sun throws puzzles about the mysteries of the universe that are never answered. The beginning of all this sorrow in myself. If only you please, transform into a butterfly in my prayer tonight. A pair of wings that burned like a fire of longing in my heart. Who suddenly fidgeted and flew into your eyes. Then descend on the branch of the Khuldi tree, before breaking into my tears. Suppose tonight, in my prayer, you incarnate like a thunderous storm. Like the sound of noisy thunder. The footsteps stepped hurriedly on the foggy road. Infiltrate the gaps of our thoughts and feelings. Shackle our arms, knees and breath. If only, in my prayer tonight you will be transformed into murky tears. Who trembled, even though it would patiently take care of my sadness. The pain that somehow healed my soul. Beliefs that keep mysteries for my deepest secrets, which you endlessly hum, in order to be a comfort for my sad life. My dear. Lady of my heart. My love. My soul. Bless me with all your generosity. With your mercy, with your endless love. With your infinite anger.

She pulls her uncle's topaz prayer beads out of her pockets and settles herself by thinking of braised squab: a sauce for wild game with motes of cinnamon and smoke.

If by bathing daily God could be realized Sooner would I be a whale in the deep; If by eating roots and fruits He could be known Gladly would I choose the form of a goat; If the counting of rosaries uncovered Him I would say my prayers on mammoth beads; If bowing before stone images unveiled Him A flinty mountain I would humbly worship; If by drinking milk the Lord could be imbibed Many calves and children would know Him; If abandoning one’s wife could summon God Would not thousands be eunuchs? Mirabai knows that to find the Divine One The only indispensable is Love.

If by bathing daily God could be realised Sooner would I be a whale in the deep; If by eating roots and fruits He could be known Gladly would I choose the form of a goat; If the counting of rosaries uncovered Him I would say my prayers on mammoth beads; If bowing before stone images unveiled Him A flinty mountain I would humbly worship; If by drinking milk the Lord could be imbibed Many calves and children would know Him; If abandoning one’s wife would summon God Would not thousands be eunuchs? Mirabai knows that to find the Divine One The only indispensable is Love.

If by bathing daily God could be realized Sooner would I be a whale in the deep; If by eating roots and fruits He could be known Gladly would I choose the form of a goat; If the counting of rosaries uncovered Him I would say my prayers on mammoth beads; If bowing before stone images unveiled Him A flinty mountain I would humbly worship; If by drinking milk the Lord could be imbibed Many calves and children would know Him; If abandoning one’s wife could summon God Would not thousands be eunuchs?

Each door she passed held an offering on its threshold for the spirits. Appeasements and manifest prayers in the shape of carved figurines and small stacks of peat, so the fire could dance and burn, and chimes made of fishing line and glass beads, so the wind could hear its own breath when it passed by. There were small bannnoks and cups of milk for the spirits of the earth, and salted herring and jewelry strung with shells for the water.

Footsteps in the Sand I’m journeying the path of Truth Not knowing where it leads Walking with my head bowed And counting prayers with beads . On a course, well worn by time From the first man to the last, I’m wearied by the distance And wearied by the fast . I paid the toll of charity To walk down wisdom’s way But will I have the discipline To stay the course today . Fleeing a field of falsehood Holding Proverbs for my flight I sacrificed illusion On an altar made of Light . Will I find the Philosopher’s Stone, The Ark or the Holy Grail, Or stumble upon a desolate place, Of brimstone, fire and hail . Are Ancient Mysteries up ahead To heal the blind, the sick, the lame A Phoenix in the ashes Or a tempest I must tame . Maybe i’ll walk on water, Turn base metal into gold Maybe i’ll write the future And watch it all unfold . I drink the waters of Elijah Pool On the Father’s reality Hoping to ascend like Enoch, The bonds of mortality . I’m walking towards the Light of Truth With God holding my right hand Following the path of Prophets Who left Footsteps in the Sand

Prayer Beads [10w] Whenever needs are unmet, you'll find more prayers than beads.

He squinted at the fluorescent light on the white ceiling. The Spanish praying continued. The familiar smell filled the air, that combination of harsh cleaners, bodily functions, wilting fauna and absolutely no natural air circulation. Mike’s head dropped to the left. He saw the back of a woman hunched over a bed. Her fingers moved over the prayer beads. Her head seemed to be resting on a man’s chest. She alternated between sobs and prayers—and a blend of the two. He

What is fear?" she breathed. 'Fear is nothing. Fear is illusion. Pass through its fire. Truth lies at its core. What it Truth?" She stood up, feeling calmer and glared up at the sinking sun. "I am Truth," she whispered fiercely.

shade of a wall, listlessly fingering their prayer beads,

I came because I wanted to be the one to break the news to you. No amount of prayers, confessions in a wooden booth, counting rosary beads, kneeling before a cross, or fasting will purify a soul. Once you’ve welcomed evil inside you, there is no turning back. Heaven will reject you.

This is where the prayer beads around my neck come in,” Julian added with rising enthusiasm. “Every time I catch myself thinking a negative thought, I take this necklace off and remove another bead. These beads of worry go into a cup I keep in my knapsack. Together they serve as gentle reminders that I still have a distance to travel on the road to mental mastery and responsibility over the thoughts that fill my mind.

A lady says to a priest, “Father, I have a problem. I have these two talking female parrots, but they only know how to say one thing.” “What do they say?” the priest asks “They only know how to say, ‘Hi, we are prostitutes. Do you want to have some fun?’” “That’s terrible! But I have a solution to your problem. Bring your two talking female parrots over to my house and I will put them with my two male talking parrots. I have taught my birds to pray and read the Bible. My parrots will teach your parrots to stop saying that terrible phrase and your parrots will learn to pray and worship.” “Thank you, Father, that’s very helpful.” The next day, the lady brings her parrots to the priest’s house. The two male birds are holding rosary beads and praying in their cage. The lady puts her females in with them and the birds immediately say, “Hi, we are prostitutes! Do you want to have some fun?” One male parrot looks over to the other one and screams, “Frank! Put the Bibles away, our prayers have been answered!

We suggest our new brothers and sisters who are somewhat freaky in dress, hair, and general appearance to ask the Lord in prayer for a balance. We do feel that beads, bells, and various astrological signs, along with the "no bra" philosophy of the Hip scene should be forsaken. We do not believe that a shave and haircut make a Christian any more than long hair and sandals.

You have returned from the lesser jihad to the greater jihad (jihad alakbar).” His followers asked him what that greater jihad was. “The struggle against your passionate soul,” he replied. ‘So what does this greater jihad entail?’ I asked him. ‘It is the effort to practise our faith,’ Gai replied. ‘To pray five times every day is an effort, to veil one’s selfish desires and conduct life in accordance with Islamic ethics and laws. The greatest “spiritual warriors” are the saints armed not with weapons but with prayer and prayer beads.’ While it all made sense I wanted to know more about the idea that we needed to go out and fight jihad.

For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” —Luke 6:45 (NIV) One morning before a church meeting, I made the sign of the cross over my mouth as a quick prayer to keep me from saying negative or critical things. All went well until the end, when we discussed trying a new form of worship. Suddenly, a quick criticism fell right out of my mouth: “The powers that be won’t like it, and they’ll probably veto it.” I immediately felt a twinge of guilt, but I pretended nothing was wrong. After the meeting I knew it was time to visit the prayer chapel. As I knelt, I recalled that last Sunday in class we’d seen a video where the speaker had two glasses filled to the brim with beads. When he knocked them together, several beads popped out of both of them because of the impact. The speaker explained that we can’t blame other people for bringing out the worst in us because nothing can come out of us that’s not already in there to begin with. I left the chapel knowing I had been forgiven, but I still felt I’d let down God and myself. Driving home, I hit road-construction traffic and turned off on a street I rarely take. As I was passing a church, my eye caught a message board sign out front. “Jesus still loves you” was all it said. I let out a deep cleansing breath, thankful that not only are God’s mercies new every morning but so is His unchanging love. Dear Jesus, show me the hidden places inside of me where I need Your mercies every morning, so I can live better days for You. Amen. —Karen Barber Digging Deeper: Jl 2:12–13; Heb 4:16

People slip spontaneously into moments of concentration all the time—while reading a book, exercising, playing chess, or creating art. A yogi seeks to experience that same level of concentration intentionally in a practice known as dharana—the act of purposefully narrowing the mind’s focus on the breath, the sensations of the body, a mantra, or a prayer bead. This consistent and purposeful focusing of the mind while on the yoga mat or meditation cushion gives the yogi the same level of focus in life, allowing for wild creativity and unfathomable productivity.

If prayer is the most effective way to prevent mass shootings, how come no one ever brings Rosary Beads to a gunfight?

Your shelter, You dispel the fears of the world. Therefore, we seek refuge in You. For You are our beginning, middle, and final resting place. Therefore we pray to Thee—shine Your merciful glance upon us. Draw our souls unto Thee and deliver us, for we are created in Your image. By You, we are sent into this world, and in You we find final refuge. Amein.” “Amein,” they echoed. “Come and bring your sick and needy to us for healing,” I said, releasing a grateful sigh. For the people had received my words and appreciated them. The Gentiles, Samaritans, Jews, and pagans, had all come together to share in a moment of devotion. Their sick came forward to receive healing and many were baptized. During the pagan festival of Estre, eggs and rabbits were given as gifts unto us as symbols of earth’s renewal and fertility. The rabbits, we kept as pets and the children delighted in them. While the eggs were given as rewards to those faithful dogs who protected our village. In return, we gave gifts of handcrafted wooden rosary beads, upon which they learned to pray. We taught this type of daily prayer and supplication,

Compassion in times and places of confusion is usually a good idea. Frequently, new dervishes will become upset by what they see happening in the apparent world. For example, if their tesbih (Sufi prayer beads) breaks, they take this as a sign that Allah is angry with them. There is no evil that their tesbih broke. What is important is how the dervish mends it or replaces it. Just as that in life, when other "things" break, what is important is our reaction and how we mend or replace them. In addition, assuming that Allah is angry with them, is typical for the new dervish in that new dervishes tend to react in extreme ways. Everything becomes a matter of blown out of proportion. As one matures on the Path, one develops a sense of proportion and perspective, and does not run off as a chicken with its head cut off, when an inconvenience occurs in life.

She mothered as a penance, like sliding fingers along rosary beads. Each mile, its own prayer. If she gave her time selflessly, maybe she could forget the wrong she’d done. If she worked for no reward, if she was kind to people who could offer her nothing in return, maybe then her sins would be washed away.

The first Christians to use beads with their prayers were in the Irish community of St. Colomba in the ninth century. Though the practice of using stones and knots to count prayers originated with the Desert Fathers and Mothers in the third century, it was the Irish that exchanged their knotted strings for the texture and beauty of beads.

The following, from Sir John F. Davis, will show how it is employed in China: "From the Tartar religion of the Lamas, the rosary of 108 beads has become a part of the ceremonial dress attached to the nine grades of official rank. It consists of a necklace of stones and coral, nearly as large as a pigeon's egg, descending to the waist, and distinguished by various beads, according to the quality of the wearer. There is a small rosary of eighteen beads, of inferior size, with which the bronze count their prayers and ejaculations exactly as in the Romish ritual. The laity in China sometimes wear this at the wrist, performed with musk, and give it the name of Heang-choo, or fragrant beads.

At that, Harrowhark stopped working her scaphoid and glanced at Gideon. She gave a rather brusque hand-wave to the geriatric fan club behind her and they scattered: tottering, kissing the floor and rattling both their prayer beads and their unlubricated knee joints, disappearing into the darkness and down the tier.

her form of prayer and her mother’s were not the same. Virginia Romano recited Hail Mary’s and Our Fathers, clicking rosary beads like a typist on a keyboard. Fast. Efficient. Error-free. Jenny carried on conversations, disjointed, half-formed, soulful mutterings that left her drained.

She had no need in her heart for either book or magazine. She had her own way of escape, her own passage into contentment: her rosary. That string of white beads, the tiny links worn in a dozen places and held together by strands of white thread which in turn broke regularly, was, bead for bead, her quiet flight out of the world. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. And Maria began to climb. Bead for bead, life and living fell away. Hail Mary, Hail Mary. Dream without sleep encompassed her. Passion without flesh lulled her. Love without death crooned the memory of belief. She was away: she was free; she was no longer Maria, American or Italian, poor or rich, with or without electric washing machines and vacuum cleaners; here was the land of all-possessing. Hail Mary, Hail Mary, over and over, a thousand and a hundred thousand times, prayer upon prayer, the sleep of the body, the escape of the mind, the death of memory, the slipping away of pain, the deep silent reverie of belief. Hail Mary and Hail Mary. It was for this that she lived.

Lola long dead, I still enter her old room and find her rosary made from pressed rose petals. I cradle it in my palms, perfuming my hands with her prayers. I don't pray. I just wonder at the fragrance a brown bead can hold, how many petals, how many roses, to make just one bead.

...or works along its rim with busy fingers like a string of prayer beads.

What is a prayer for those who don't have the ability to kneel; to rotate beads with hands they don't have; or need to see to believe that there is spirituality?

And her words, there is only love, passed like prayer-bead wishes on a thread of possibility as the music and laughter crashed around me.

The tears, when they came, slipped from he closed eyelids like so many beads on a prayer chain. Some women cry easily. The tears fall as gently as fragrant raindrops in a sun-shower, and leave the face clear and clean and almost radiant. Other women cry hard, and all the loveliness in them collapses in the agony of it.

The tears, when they came, slipped from her closed eyelids like so many beads on a prayer chain. Some women cry easily. The tears fall as gently as fragrant raindrops in a sun-shower, and leave the face clear and clean and almost radiant. Other women cry hard, and all the loveliness in them collapses in the agony of it.