Prayer.

Over the course of my life, that word and practice has meant different things. At first, we learn rote prayers. "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep..." The Lord's Prayer. Prayers before meals. Growing up, our before-meal prayer went like this: "Father, bless this food we take, and bless us all, for Jesus' sake. Amen." Our after-meal prayer was: "Thank you, God, for what we eat/fruit and bread and milk and meat/bless us all throughout the day/in Jesus' name we humbly pray/Amen."

As I matured, I came to talk to God more freely, but often there were structures to those prayers too. There is the "A.C.T.S." prayer: adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication (requests). It was helpful to me for a long time. 

For years I kept a prayer list of people with needs, usually health problems but not always. People with concerns. I didn't pray for myself unless something seemed drastically wrong.  But that list became a discipline that made me feel guilty if I missed a day. Eventually I gave it up, because it seemed too obligatory and almost superstitious for me.  I still pray for people, but when I promise to pray for them, I do it right away and then again as they come to mind. 

Then there were the years of journaling prayers, which was really helpful. I still do it occasionally, because it evokes feelings and even insights that would not have arisen if I had not put pen to paper.  They are like letters to God that express my deepest yearnings and joys.

Then I was introduced to centering prayer. This is not a practice I have "arrived" at, as if it were the pinnacle of all prayer styles. It is not the aim of all pray-ers, nor any kind of ultimate solution. 

But it is a helpful practice, especially for folks like me who can operate primarily through words and linear thinking. It helps me to open myself to God's presence without an agenda. This is key for me. I have found that by letting go of my list of priorities and self-improvement plans, I can let God do what is best in me at the time, slowly changing me from the inside out, through the processes and in the timeline that suits my needs. I have discovered changes in myself that I did not ask for, but were sorely needed. These came through "letting go and letting God," as some like to put it. 

I won't educate you in centering prayer here. You can learn more about it online, and experience it through what some call a "contemplative sit" if you want to try it.  I simply want to share a poem that expresses my experience of moving beyond intellectual practices like reading about God and prayer and even using words in prayer at all. Simply allowing God's loving gaze to be my only focus is often all I need or want. Doing it consistently enables me to experience its healing effect. 

The Miner Digs the Depths of Me

The Miner digs the depths of me 
uncovers treasure there.
I’m excavated willingly, 
a deeper form of prayer.

My mind is still lest thoughts invade
to trouble and obscure 
discovered lode, memory unmade, 
a knowing new and pure.

The work’s not mine. The Miner probes 
with tools of love and loss 
unearthing holiness in troves 
of equal gem and dross.  

Unthoughtful words do not begin 
this harvest to allow.
Precision begs to use the pen 
and seize the store below.

Yet even that cannot contain 
the glory and the grace 
of being valued endlessly 
beneath the Miner’s gaze.