When I want to improve my kavanah in prayers, I think of the times and places where I experienced an elevation of spirit
The first time I sensed transcendence was on a ship.
When I was a boy, about 11 or 12 years old, my parents took us on a trip on the open sea. The ship was called the Bluenose, and it was a great big ship, so big that it could hold many people along with their cars and ferry them across the sea from the mainland to a peninsula far away, a province of Canada. The trip was so long that there was no land at all visible for many hours, only sea everywhere you looked.
It was a warm, overcast, summer day with very strong winds and great, high waves. A tropical storm had passed by, and we were in the wake of the storm.
I’d always loved the water, and in spite of the threatening weather, decided to go up on deck. I went right out to the bow of the ship and took hold with both hands of the thick, gray iron walls that came to a point at the very front of the ship. When the ship would ascend a wave, I felt the great force from beneath the soles of my feet. And when the ship would descend the wave, I felt as if I were floating down, almost weightless. The waves would strike the bow from different angles, quite often sending up a delightful, salty spray.
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