The Never-Ending Prayer

 The Five Seals of Temple Worship

(In Which Our Intrepid Blogger Goes All Mystical on the Reader, or Something)

See here in the mosaic floor before the altar, these five inset seals in a line, marking a path to Holiness, and from it.

These are the five stations of the daily offerings.

Here, farthest from the altar, you stand to make the offering.

Next, before it, is where you touch, bowing to touch the ground.

Upon the third, three paces from the first, you stand to make the prayers. (Having offered, you now draw near, to offer up prayers for the people.)

Before it, fourth, is where you touch, bowing to touch the ground.

And here, fifth, nearest the altar, is where, at the end—prayers spoken, offering made—you kiss the Earth.

Here, written on the ground before the altar: the permanent offering, the never-ending prayer.