The Prayer Thread is a collection of teachings and practical prompts to help as we learn to pray in community. This text was originally delivered on May 11, 2022 as a short teaching at our online weekly prayer sit.
Sure, there are times in prayer when we feel like we are taken out of ourselves, like we’re floating on the clouds. But more often than not, prayer is practical, and we do well to tend to ourselves concretely.
First, as much consistency as possible will help: consistency in place, time, and form of prayer. Consistency is like a coat rack at the front door of our prayer; we can hang our jacket on it and then settle in.
Find a regular place to pray: a cozy spot in your house, a particular path to walk every day, a special sacred place to go to. Regular timing helps, too: most folks like morning or evening, but lunch breaks and bus stop drop-offs are also good markers for consistency in the time of our prayer.
Sticking with a particular form of prayer is also important. If we vary our prayer too much from day to day, we effectively train ourselves to become dependent on novelty and stimulation. Best to seek out stability where we can, and let life’s usual ups and downs provide occasional bouts of change.
Consequently, we should be prepared for the days when we can’t easily hang our coats on the rack, and must keep our jackets on. Such preparation is also practical. We will need our jackets on when our usual place for prayer is unavailable and we have to move, or when our regular time for prayer gets switched.
Over time, God will also call us to new forms of prayer as we mature, and it will be good to have the right jacket on for those graced periods when we are called to widen or deepen our prayer.
