My Prayers Praying Me

When I conducted one-on-one Intentional Living Intensives with clients, we would start our days with prayer.  As we sat quietly, I would tell them that I'd like for them to consider praying differently this time.  "Let your prayers pray you," I would say.

I would continue to say that most of us were taught to ask for things or to invite guidance on decisions.  Sometimes we said memorized prayers, such as the Lord's Prayer which Christians often recite or the childhood prayer of "Now I lay me down to sleep...."  Generally, prayer has been something that came from our brains.

Yet when we read about prayer, often it suggests communion or communication.  As my client and I reflected on how prayer might be different, I would often share some different definitions of prayer for us to ponder. Today I looked up communion on dictionary.com.  After the Christian sacrament of communion were the definitions "an interchange or sharing of thoughts or emotions, intimate communication; the act of sharing, or holding in common."   That was the kind of prayer I was suggesting.

We would often talk about the nature of communication and especially intimate communication.  "Two way," my clients would often say. "Listening deeply...taking time to let things sink in...more silence."  Rather than us talking to God from our heads, I would say, "Let try intimate communication."

When my clients stopped thinking about what they were going to "say" in prayer, and instead they concentrated more on "listening," "letting things sink in," and "silence," a commonality across my clients from different religions and even the occasional atheist or agnostic who came for this spiritual retreat emerged.

There was much more silence.  Sometimes we'd sit for several minutes.  What followed was often several minutes of gratitude but rarely gratitude for the things that my financially successful clients spent considerable energy pursuing.  I lived in a house in the woods on a lake.  "Thank you for the song of the birds," might come.  "Thank you for the rain." "Thanks for the cycle of nature." "Guide us in our work today," I would usually say.

Almost always, my clients would say what a profound experience it had been to let their prayers pray them.  I would always agree.

This morning I leave on a business trip, and I couldn't figure out the logistics of going to church and then making my travel schedule.  I decided to take my worship time to meditate.  Shortly after sitting, I heard, "Let your prayers pray you."  I smiled.  It had been a long time.  There it was again.  I live in different woods now, but the song of two birds, obviously communicating, was the first thing I was thankful for.  Then what grabbed my attention was a site of chronic pain, so I was thankful for the parts of my body that worked well.  In an instant, the pain source calmed and melted discomfort away.

For 25 minutes I let my prayers pray me.  I don't remember any others now, but I didn't ask for anything.  I sat in deep gratitude.  I was in intimate communication with God. The profound stillness continues in me now. It was perfect.