Mark Twain said we are the only Animal which prays, or needs to.
It is the poignancy of our prayers, our dreams, our visions, which gives us the wings to fly to heaven, or to descend into hell.. We can look at a distant star and imagine, somehow, that we are there.
It is commonly said that we cannot understand a black person, a handicapped person, a woman, anyone, without being that person, without having gone through all the hurts, the joys, the unknown experiences, and perhaps in an ultimate sense that is true. But we try, we constantly try, and we succeed far better than we have any right to expect. It is for this capacity we are valued: to dream, to love, to reach beyond ourselves into the heart of a stranger, or the mind of God.