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 June 15, 2022 as a short teaching at our online weekly prayer sit.
From our constant breath to our wandering mind, to our longing hearts and our living spirits, prayer takes expression as holistic. Too many of our societal influences, and even our theological traditions, end up compartmentalizing human capacity in attempts to specialize or evangelize. Prayer, however, resists the temptation toward division.
Prayer insists on celebrating human capacity. In prayer, we honor the call to cultivate the divine within by tending the sacred spaces in which our full selves can show up and remember how to be fully alive. In prayer, we assume that part of the contemplative dialogue between Self, God and Others is built upon our God-given abilities to think, to feel, to long for, to sense into the wholeness of reality in which we are immersed.
To make a connection between the words of sacred texts and daily life is to honor the mind in prayer. To be moved to tears because of the reality of others’ suffering in our petitions is to honor the affect in prayer. To feel the angst of longing for healing and reconciliation is to honor the will in prayer. To perceive the interconnections between us is to honor the heart in prayer. To recognize that we are bound to one another is to honor the fire of the spirit in prayer. To honor this full spectrum of human capacity is (w)holistic prayer. The work and activity of whole-making honors the Divine within and everywhere.
