Tonight's lession include learning how to pray. Thanks to Jess sharing

From this book   "Taste and see : adventuring into prayer" by Margaret Silf

Analogy: Satellite Dish

It reminds me of the huge, complicated efforts we make to catch the signals of the stars. But it also reminds me that all we can do to receive God is direct our hearts towards God and trust him to do the rest.

That satellite dish spells out for me a few simple ground rules:
- Prayer is /God's initiative, /not our achievement.
- Prayer is about /listening/ more than about talking.
- Prayer is about /receiving /more than about making requests.
- Prayer is about /coming to rest while pointed in God's direction./

The satellite dish can do nothing more than direct itself toward the source of the signal. It can't force the signal to happen. All its efforts are directed toward receiving the signal and interpreting it in ways that mean something for life on Earth. Prayer is like that. We can open ourselves up to it and remain alert to it. We can receive it and reflect on what it means for our daily living. We can act on it and let it inform our choices and decisions. But we cannot force it, because prayer is /God's gift/, and however, carefully we prepare for it, it will always take us by surprise, which, after all, is what real gifts are supposed to do!

And how might we set about opening ourselves up to receive God in this sort of way? I would suggest that we do this in exactly the same way as we would open our hearts to a dear friend. /We listen/. As we ask for grace to listen with our full attention and with the trust and expectation that we would have in a conversation with our friend. To listen like this requires a degree of stillness and silence that doesn't always come naturally in our world of feverish and anxious activity and busyness.