A Hasidic Tale

Late one evening a poor farmer on his way back from the market found himself without his prayer book. It distressed him that this day should pass without his having said his prayers.

So this is the prayer he made: “I have done something very foolish, Lord. I came away from home this morning without my prayer book, and my memory is such that I cannot recite a single prayer without it. So I shall recite the alphabet five times very slowly and you, to whom all prayers are known, can put the letters together to form the prayers I can’t remember.”

And the Lord said to his angels, “Of all the prayers I have heard today, this one was undoubtedly the best because it came from a heart that was simple and sincere.”
_{Anthony de Mello, The Prayer of the Frog}