Prayer is translation. A man translates himself into a child asking for all there is in a language he has barely mastered.
Interpretation
Prayer is a form of communication where a person expresses their deepest desires and vulnerabilities, akin to a child's innocent requests.
In this quote, Leonard Cohen reflects on the nature of prayer as a profound yet simple act of reaching out to a higher power. He suggests that when individuals pray, they transform into a vulnerable state, like a child asking for everything they need, using a language they struggle to fully articulate. This highlights the humility and sincerity inherent in the act of praying, emphasizing a longing for connection and understanding that often transcends words.
In practice
This quote could be used during a meditation or prayer session to emphasize the innocence in seeking help.
What is most original in a man's nature is often that which is most desperate. Thus new systems are forced on the world by men who simply cannot bear the pain of living with what is. Creators care nothing for their systems except that they be unique. If Hitler had been born in Nazi Germany he wouldn't have been content to enjoy the atmosphere.
I always thought that poetry is the verdict that others give to a certain kind of writing. So to call yourself a poet is a kind of dangerous description. It's for others; it's for others to use.
Be With Me In The Phases Of My Work Because My Brain Feels Like It Has Been Whipped And I Yearn To Make A Small Perfect Thing Which Will Live In Your Morning Like Curious Static Through A President's Elegy Or A Nude Hunchback Acquiring A Tan On The Crowded Oily Beach.
I heard of a man who says words so beautifully that if he only speaks their name women give themselves to him. If I am dumb beside your body while silence blossoms like tumors on our lips it is because I hear a man climb stairs and clear his throat outside our door.
I think what we like about music - and what we like about art in general....is that enterprise that stops our minds from spinning. Because we're always all over the place. A good song, a good lyric is a movie: it will just focus and calm and confer significance on this completely bewildering reality that all of us live in.
Most of the time one is discouraged by the work, but now and again by some grace something stands out and invites you to work on it, to elaborate it or animate it in some way. It's a mysterious process.
I don't read reviews because by then it's too late - whatever anyone says, the book won't change. It is written.
But in general, take my advice, when you meet anything that is going to be Human and isn’t yet, or used to be Human once and isn’t now, or ought to be Human and isn’t, you keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet.
Humility is the distinguishing virtue of the believer in freedom; arrogance, of the paternalist.
We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures; because the earth never froze entirely during an ice age; because a small and tenuous species, arising in Africa a quarter of a million years ago, has managed, so far, to survive by hook and by crook. We may yearn for a ‘higher answer’– but none exists
Solitude is for me a fount of healing which makes my life worth living. Talking is often a torment for me, and I need many days of silence to recover from the futility of words.
Most social acts have to be understood in their setting, and lose meaning if isolated.
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