“Dear God, guard and bless everything that breathes; keep them from all evil and let them sleep in peace.” —Albert Schweitzer

Sitting outside on a warm night, I see an owl silhouetted on a dark branch where it listens intently. Owls hunt by listening and can hear even the faintest scurrying of a mouse or slither of a lizard. Once the sound is detected, the owl can pinpoint its location with startling accuracy, by hearing separately out of each ear. The owl knows where the sound originates by the lag time between when the sound reaches each ear. If the sound is straight ahead, it arrives at both ears at the same time. The owl can even determine if the sound comes from above or below by the intensity of the sound received in each ear.

If an owl can detect even the softest plash of a fish, don’t you think that God can hear our prayers? Prayer has been proven to work in healing, even for agnostics, whether the person praying is saying, “Hail, Mary, full of grace,” “Shema Yisroel,” or “Om.”

God can hear our prayers with more accuracy than he or she gave the owl.