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!
The American lives even more for his goals, for the future, than the European. Life for him is always becoming, never being.
Far from being the father of jihad, [Prophet] Mohammad was a peacemaker, who risked his life and nearly lost the loyalty of his closest companions because he was determined to effect a reconciliation with Mecca
Constantly regard the universe as one living being, having one substance and one soul; and observe how all things have reference to one perception, the perception of this one living being; and how all things act with one movement; and how all things are the cooperating causes of all things which exist; observe too the continuous spinning of the thread and the contexture of the web.
Since psyche and matter are contained in one and the same world, and moreover are in continuous contact with one another and ultimately rest on irrepresentable, transcendental factors, it is not only possible but fairly probable, even, that psyche and matter are two different aspects of the same thing.
It's hard for me to view Baltimore outside the context of what Baltimore has always been in my mind: a violent place.
There is no need to worry about mere size. We do not necessarily respect a fat man more than a thin man. Sir Isaac Newton was very much smaller than a hippopotamus, but we do not on that account value him less.
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