Last summer, my wife and I traveled the US West Coast. In Los Angeles, strolling down Hollywood Boulevard, right there ‘in the belly of the beast’, we stumbled upon a young lady offering us… a free prayer. It was a temptation we couldn’t resist. Prayers are possible, anytime, anywhere, for free indeed. You can run out of gas, but never out of grace – ain’t it?

“The Christian may sometimes envy
those who have renounced the cares of the world
for the supposed calm of the desert;
but then those who live in the world
may at any time find within themselves the true desert, where no one enters,
where no one is with you,
but where there is only you and God.”

– St. Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 (from Homilies on the Psalms 38.13).