Believe

When someone wants to improve his-her life and is provided with an opportunity to learn something new, there is a thirst for knowledge that can seem at times to be ravenous. The character Luke Skywalker is no exception to this rule. Faced with the possibility of moving beyond his sleepy existence and learning about the possibility that there may be much more out there, he is eager to learn about the Force, but when he has to face the discipline of learning how to harness the Force, he becomes discouraged because there is much work to do, and little sign of progress, at least in the initial stages.

Every opportunity for growth in life brings with it a certain degree of commitment on our part, and the fact is that at times the work is sheer drudgery and downright uninteresting. In fact there can be and often are moments along the way that are disheartening: moments when we may be convinced that all our hard work is not bearing much fruit at all, but the secret is to stick with it, to remain committed to developing the skills and to believe that at some point, all the hard work will pay off.

Artists all know the moment at which a water colour painting looks like a mass of colour which is hopelessly more like a giant smudge than the beautiful result of patience required to let the colours blend and set. Linguists know the frustration of endless practice needed to get the pronounciations just right, and musicians know the dedication necessary in order to achieve the breakthrough that comes when they seem to finally stop playing notes and begin making music.

When we begin the journey of faith, the same is true: we may very well begin with the rote prayers we have been taught as children, and these can become boring at times, when we think of them simply as a repetition of words. If however we are persistent enough to reach the moment when we finally discover that words repeated give way to a conversation that takes place between us and God, we discover the true meaning of prayer. Like Luke Skywalker who watches in disbelief as Yoda raises the X-wing fighter out of the swamp, like the piano student who listens in awe to the concert given by his-her favorite virtuoso, each young aprentice in the art of prayer can eventually achieve the satisfaction of divine communication which has the potential to draw us ever closer to our ultimate goal of union with the One who has first created us and who awaits our eventual return.