Praying for Strangers

The good Anchoress has done it again (I wish I could write this well!) She wrote some great stuff about Praying for the stranger

And lately, I find myself praying for strangers. At the bank, watching a harried mother deal with her whining daughter, I pray for them, and for their good. For the elderly couple walking hand-in-hand to light a candle in church. For the three kids dressed in black, hanging out aimlessly by the corner. For the overweight guy who looks so sad, the kid behind the counter whose dreams likely never included that job.

It’s a funny thing, but praying for strangers has made me slightly more at ease in the world. I am an introvert and that will always be true, but the spiritual and psychic engagement of the world, through prayer, has made me feel more a part of it. Praying for others has made Thomas Merton’s astounding personal revelation make more and more sense to me.

“There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”

No. But praying for them helps one to move in that light.

We are, after all, all in this together - and quite outside of time.