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Prayer Update

It's one thing to make a pronouncement, another to practice what you preach, and so only today did I finally sit down to read in my prescribed manner. I finished Chapter 1 and began chapter 2, where William James discusses how he will define religion, namely:
the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine.
He leaves out theology, and argues for religion as a somber, un-sneering, not laughing or satirical, approach to what a person believes is true. At least I think so, not having finished the chapter.

P.S. I used to be embarrassed to show my left arm in public, after praying just quickly enough to cover the basic blessings and the Shema, thinking that the lightness of the imprint of leather in my arm exposed my lackadaisical attitude to prayer and subsequently religion. But by this standard, reading William James is sufficient devotion.

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