What resonates for me today are the three simple prayer words suggested by Anne Lamott: Help, Thanks, Wow. Yesterday in our time of “afterthoughts” at the rise of meeting for worship I heard one person ask us to hold her friend in the Light, and another express gratitude for something that had happened. I noted that these expressions fit the first two kinds of prayer and I added an example of the third. My weekend had been one big WOW, and I was still relishing it. We had gone to Denali Park on a sunny day, with a few clouds scudding across the mountains allowing the sun to spotlight one point and then another. Some hillsides were splashed with golden birch and aspen leaves intermingled with the deep green of spruce. Other hills were cloaked in red tundra vegetation. We took a couple of short hikes, feeling grateful that our feet, legs, and knees still support us. We stopped to rest along the Savage River and marveled at the ancient rocks that were tumbled over time and carved into overhanging cliffs by this relentless waterway. We saw a couple of hoary marmots scampering among the rocks.  At each point, as I uttered or simply experienced “Wow,” I felt in the presence of God. This is what Anne Lamott calls prayer: “Prayer means that, in some unique way, we believe we’re invited into a relationship with someone who hears us when we speak in silence.”