My Favorite Prayer
Jun. 25th, 2007 07:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rsadelleIf you ever have a chance to watch one of Dewitt Jones' videos, jump on it! I'm privileged in that we have copies of two of them - Focus Your Vision and Celebrate What's Right With The World - at work. I've seen Focus Your Vision three times now, and it's so powerful that it still makes me tear up and fills me with inspiration.
We're working on creating a vision for part of the agency I work for, so my last viewing of Focus Your Vision was just a couple of weeks ago. It sparked a thought about my favorite prayer. When I think of prayer, I don't think of the Shema (Shema yisra'el adonai eloheynu adonai echad/Listen, Israel: the eternal is our God, the eternal one alone.), which the prayer in Judaism. Instead, my thought is of the first part of the Amidah, another central prayer. Our congregation now does the whole Amidah silently, but we used to sing the first part, Hebrew and English, and this is what I think of when I think of prayer (with the last English word pluralized, because it doesn't scan in the singular):
We're working on creating a vision for part of the agency I work for, so my last viewing of Focus Your Vision was just a couple of weeks ago. It sparked a thought about my favorite prayer. When I think of prayer, I don't think of the Shema (Shema yisra'el adonai eloheynu adonai echad/Listen, Israel: the eternal is our God, the eternal one alone.), which the prayer in Judaism. Instead, my thought is of the first part of the Amidah, another central prayer. Our congregation now does the whole Amidah silently, but we used to sing the first part, Hebrew and English, and this is what I think of when I think of prayer (with the last English word pluralized, because it doesn't scan in the singular):
Adonai sefatai tiftach, ufi yagid tehilatecha.
Open my lips, beloved one, and let my mouth declare your praises.