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 February 2, 2022 as a short teaching at our online weekly prayer sit.
While I was training others to practice spiritual direction, I recall a strong sense of hypocrisy. Even as I announced the importance of regular prayer, my own prayer life was inconsistent. In reality, for good practical reason: I was mothering young, demanding children; I was working part-time and finishing doctoral studies; I was tending a marriage and other important relationships. It literally took me four years to discover that the only regularly consistent part of my day was when I dropped my son off at the bus stop at the same time and place every day.
So eventually, I built my daily contemplative walk around that moment in the day—but even then, consistency remained a stranger. Since my young daughter was with me, sometimes we would have actual silence at the pit stop in the cathedral, and sometimes not. Sometimes I would get through the meta-mantra, and sometimes not. Sometimes we would see cardinals and chickadees, and sometimes not. While we were always seeking, we did not always find.
In this way, I slowly learned to go with the flow—to follow the foot, or bird, or child in front of me and learn to perceive spirit in the movement, on the go. It is a good thing I learned this, because God regularly lures me closer to healing and wholeness by shaking things up a bit.
