What is a Prayer?

It's been a while since I had the inspiration to write a poem (since my trip to El Salvador, actually) but this one just felt right. It's a question I've been asking myself for a really long time, and it hit home as I was listening to The Goo Goo Dolls, "Better Days." In the song, there's a line in the second verse that goes: "And the one poor child who saved the world, and there's 10 million more who probably could, if we all just stopped and said a prayer for them." It got me asking if prayer was enough, and then to the question that inspired the following: what is a prayer?

What is a prayer? A wish sent up high?
What about how we live our lives?
An intentional way of spending each day,
A smile, a laugh, a hug, to say,
You are worth it, you are enough,
You are the reason I choose love.

What is a prayer? Asking a helping hand?
What of our hands, are they in the plan?
Using knowledge and faith to take God from the sky,
Finding ways to meet him before we die.
Trying to bring God here to the work that we do,
Trying to make God real, for me and for you.

A prayer is words, yes, a talk with God,
But prayer must be more, or else it is flawed.
Prayer is teaching young minds to take a stand,
Using their heads and hearts to better their land.
Prayer is making others full, the ultimate goal,
Prayer is helping people feel God’s gentle pull.

Each day a coaster, with highs and lows,
And when some days are over, we feel only the blows,
The punishment for caring too much,
The bruises and scrapes, we feel out of touch,
With why we are here, with what is our mission,
With how we fit into God’s perfect vision.

The coaster we ride is a prayer on its own,
The ecstatic scream, the agonizing groan,
God’s presence isn’t always known, accepted,
It’s sometimes easier not shown, rejected.
It isn’t easy, that much is certain,
Like trying to see light behind a steel curtain.

Despite the struggles, the desolation,
We have our moments of exultation.
And know God was there, through good and through bad,
See his footprints beside ours in the sand.
And at the close of the day, as I lay down to rest,
I know He was with me, saw me through each test.

I ask again, what is a prayer?
What is it we are sending into the air?
Gratitude, requests, apologies, perchance?
A way for us to, our lives, enhance?
The way we see, we be with the Other?
The way a small child loves its mother?

Prayer is all of this, and none all the same,
What is prayer is something we can’t name,
But, prayer is me, and prayer is you,
Prayer is what we commit ourselves to.
The labor of our hands, the labor of our heart,
The way we go about doing our part.

A prayer is anything that connects us,
God, each other, ourselves, it collects us.
Lifting us up on eagles’ wings,
At the world’s beauty, making us sing,
Of times good and bad, of mourning and dancing.
A prayer is every one of these things.