by this separation of form from life, and by
the separation of God from the world, so that we make Him the monarch of
religion instead of the creator and redeemer of life. Because of our
belief in love as God's chosen relation to the world and in the
incarnation of love in the personal, it becomes possible for our prayers
and worship to be quickened through our devotion to the purposes of God
in the world.

An analogy may help us here. Every relationship has its devotional
rituals and observances which are important to it. Husband and wife, for
instance, because of their love and devotion to each other, develop
little rituals and ways of doing that are designed to express their
devotion to each other. They come together for this purpose. There is
the kiss, the touch of the hand, the gifts on special occasions and
those which come as surprises; their physical union is the symbol and
instrument of their spiritual union and becomes the sacrament of their
relationship as persons. But these acts of love presuppose and depend
upon their over-all and lifelong devotion to each other in everything
that they do. Their life of devotion to each other provides the content
and drive for their acts of devotion, and their acts of devotion are a
means of expressing their life of devotion. Their life of devotion needs
these acts of devotion, and without the life of devotion their acts of
devotion will dry up and become meaningless.

So it is in our relation to God. We cannot fall on our knees and cry
with any meaning: "O God, O Father, O Judge, O Savior," if our whole
lives are not lived in the context of the meaning of these exclamations.
Then our words become empty and cannot rise above our lips, and we are
overcome by the despair and futility of our prayers. Prayer may not be
recovered by going to a school of prayer to learn various techniques and
kinds of prayer, but by rekindling our devotion to the people and the
world for whom Christ died. Then, by practicing our acts of devotion in
the context of such a life of devotion, we may rediscover the meaning of
prayer. Our acts of devotion cannot be quickened by the intensification
of our prayer activity alone. Many people who are frantically trying to
whip up their prayer life would do better to get up off their knees and
go out and do something about their loveless, purposeless, and undevoted
lives. The devotion of the so-called "children of darkness" to the
pursuit of their scientif