This is Prayer

The other day when I began to pray I had a mystical experience. 

I say "experience" because it was part sensation and part vision in my mind.

In the vision I was falling, because I had tripped and lost my balance. I saw this, but also felt the sensation of falling. And in the vision I instinctively reached out my hand, as you do, to catch and steady myself. I needed to make contact, immediately, with a chairback, a wall, a handrail. Contact with anything sturdy to prevent my fall. I needed to grasp ahold of something more solid than myself. 

That was the vision/sensation, a flash of feeling and seeing--falling, panic, the urgent need to reach out, extending my hand, making contact, relief.

And then the final part of the experience, a coda, a voice that said, "This is prayer."