Prayer - A Kaleidoscope of Love

Prayer can be many things to us. Depending on your perspective, your background, your experience, your personality - prayer can mean different things. If you even pray.

There’s much that’s been written about prayer; millions of books over the centuries, to be sure. How to pray. When to pray. Where to pray. Effective prayer. Meaningful prayer. Sacred prayer. Contemplative prayer. Centering prayer. Good grief. Clearly, prayer is not an easy thing to define, never mind to practice. We clearly believe that there must be something to prayer, or its meaning and worth wouldn’t continue to haunt us.

I believe we continue to seek after prayer because prayer cannot be quantified, nailed down, boxed in or conquered. We think we want to pray, but we don’t know how. Prayer is real, and yet we don’t always know it. Prayer is communication, but we don’t often hear it, and don’t know how to speak it. Prayer is experiential, but we often can’t feel it.

I think the pathway to prayer - whatever that means, and whatever form it takes - is multidirectional- earthy yet ethereal, grounded yet divine. Prayer is not concrete; it does not have a defined path or method and approach; if it did, it wouldn’t remain so mysterious.

For me, prayer is like a kaleidoscope of light and love, ever-shifting, ever-changing, at once reflecting who we were, but also what we are becoming. Prayer is at the heart of our journey to and with God. That’s why we keep running after the process: ultimately, it means everything.

I first learned about prayer when I was four years old. I was at my mother’s knee, literally; I remember it as clearly as if it were yesterday, and not 60+ years ago. My mother taught me my first prayer, a French children’s prayer, and I can still say it- in French no less! - to this day. I was so proud of the achievement that I tried to teach it to the little boy who lived downstairs from us, but he didn’t believe in God and we got into a big fight. Yeah. At 4 years old. I was an early tyrant.

As a “good Catholic” girl, I learned to pray the rosary in second grade, and recited the prayer for each bead faithfully every night until I graduated from high school, though I often fell asleep long before I ended that seemingly endless chain of beads. Over the years, prayer took on different forms as I matured and grew in my faith. For years (and to this day), I prayed the Morning Office, a defined group of psalms assigned to each morning over a 14-day period that have anchored me, fulfilling me in ways I can’t even express. A few years later, I learned about contemplative “centering” prayer- how to still my heart, calm my soul, reach down-deep into the recesses of “me” and connect with my Creator in a new and wondrous way. Some days, it was all I could do to simply sit in angst and silence as I struggled with difficult days, life issues, the loss of my father - it was this ability to sit in the quiet that got me through grief, heartache, and the crazy cadence of life that swirled around me in my 40’s.

In my 50’s, I attended a workshop on journaling prayer, eagerly embracing the practice. Although I’d been journaling since I was 9 years old, this way of journaling fulfilled me in ways I’d not thought possible, opening up new patterns of understanding, new ways to hear, new concepts to processing scripture and other sacred works; and yes, of working through what God was telling me in the quiet moments of early morning.

As I move into my 60’s, prayer is now, more often than not, simply my quiet, focused thoughts on God, enjoying His presence, letting my mind and heart dwell on His grace, on His love. I’m seeing that prayer is far more experiential than just words can provide; it is heart and body and soul in a sacred, rhythmic dance with Holy Spirit.

I am learning that prayer is so much more than we can imagine! Prayer is walking outdoors in the sunshine, feeling the warmth of a loving God. Prayer is the knitting of a sock for a daughter or grandchild, each yarn-loop a silent offering for peace or healing or blessing. Prayer is each stitch I sew on that quilt for a grieving widow-friend. Prayer is the flower I plant in the garden, the weed I pull out of the rocks, the inhaling of the scent of the lily of the valley at my feet, the fragrance a sweet reminder of His creation-love for me. Prayer is a reaching out with head, heart, hands, soul. Up and out, and within and beyond.

What I’m trying to say is that prayer is so much more than it appears at first glance; more than rote prayers or liturgy. More than reciting a psalm. More than what we can find in a book. More than offering up a list of wants, desires, concerns, worrries. At its core, prayer is a simple-yet-complex, living, breathing expression of love; a kaleidoscope of love, of the ways we approach God - and the infinite ways He reaches out to us .

In the end, there is no one way to pray; no set routine that is perfect, no compilation of words that conveys all. The secret to prayer isn’t found in a “how-to” book, although there is nothing wrong with beginnning there. Ultimately, prayer is as personal as a fingerprint, the very God-print of His image on your soul. Prayer must become bone-deep personal, the expression of your unique likeness to God’s image in your soul.

If you haven’t figured out this “prayer” thing yet; if there is a longing in your soul to go deeper and plumb the depths of this Divine Love, perhaps it’s time. Perhaps now is the time for you to find your own way of prayer, your own paths, your own kaleidoscope of love.

It’s simple to start. Open your mouth. Open your heart. Reach out your hands. Reach for a star, a sunbeam, the very air. Simply be. It’s enough to start. He’ll hear you - and smile.