Private prayer is like straw scattered here and there: If you set it on fire it makes a lot of little flames. But gather these straws into a bundle and light them, and you get a mighty fire, rising like a column into the sky; public prayer is like that.
Interpretation
Public prayer has greater power than individual prayer, just as bundled straw creates a larger fire.
This quote signifies the importance and strength of communal prayer over solitary practices. Just as individual straws provide little warmth or light when scattered alone, private prayers can seem weak. However, when gathered together in a collective effort, they can create a powerful force, symbolized by the mighty fire, representing the amplified energy and intent generated through public prayer and unity.
In practice
During a church service when encouraging the congregation to pray together.
We put pride into everything like salt. We like to see that our good works are known. If our virtues are seen, we are pleased; if our faults are perceived, we are sad. I remark that in a great many people; if one says anything to them, it disturbs them, it annoys them. The saints were not like that - they were vexed if their virtues were known, and pleased that their imperfections should be seen.
Oh, how I like those little mortifications that are seen by nobody, such as rising a quarter of an hour sooner, rising for a little while in the night to pray!
Humanizing birth means understanding that the woman giving birth is a human being, not a machine and not just a container for making babies. Showing women-half of all people-that they are inferior and inadequate by taking away their power to give birth is a tragedy for all society.
My object in life is not simply to make money for myself or to spend it on myself in dressing or running around in an automobile, but I love to use a part of what I make in trying to help others.
By helping readers understand these mechanics, I hope they will appreciate why freedom is for everyone, why it is essential for our security and why the free world plays a critically important role in advancing democracy around the globe.
Lo, sleep is good, better is death--in sooth The best of all were never to be born.
All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in strange, sometimes inexplicable ways. This madness can be saving; it is part and parcel of the ability to adapt. Without it, no species would survive.
The irony is, the advertising industry knows everyone hates what they produce. This is why they keep looking for new ways to force people to stay tuned.
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