To pray

During this Lenten Season, I have been participating in a Conversations with God class at St. Phillip's Episcopal Church.  It's been a positive learning experience and I feel I have grown in my spiritual practice and understanding.  What I really liked about the class was the wonderful facilitator and the way she wove eclectic readings and tools into the sessions.  I always felt encouraged to try something new (to me), but never felt pressured to do so.  From today's Daily Word, I am sharing another new piece of knowledge about the word, "to pray."


daven \DAH-vuhn\, verb:

to pray.

There, day or night, everyone — the men, the women, even the children — could daven nonstop.
-- Erica Lann-Clark, "The Goats Know the Way," The Healing Heart, 2003

Every morning he wakes early to daven outside, facing Jerusalem. When I watch him from the window, I regret having taught him to sound out the Hebrew letters when he was only five.
-- Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

Daven entered English in the mid-nineteenth century from Yiddish.