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 January 17, 2024 as a short teaching at our online weekly prayer sit.
In the largest sense, prayer is universal. Even for folks who have not been taught to pray or who do not regularly commit to prayer, there are those inevitable moments, large and small, when each of us reaches out beyond ourselves. In this sense, prayer is universal. At the same time, prayer is also very particular. In those spontaneous, universal bursts of prayer, some of us call out, using words. Some of us give ourselves over, releasing our will. Some of us sing or dance, drawing upon devotion.
The particulars of prayer also show up in the regular, committed disciplines that some of us engage. Therefore, some of us prefer the text and words of Lectio Divina. Some of us prefer the stillness of silent sitting. Some of us prefer the sound and movement of song and dance.
Some of our particulars persist over time. They are like seals on our hearts, markers of our personalities. Ideally, some aspects of our particulars will shift and change through the natural development of our lives. At some point, the beloved words of text that we so treasured may become tiresome or feel fleeting. At another point, words may begin to sparkle again.
The particularities of our prayer, as with our ongoing identity development are shaped by many intersecting factors. These include relatively stable factors, such as our gender, age, class, ethnicity, personality, and body type. Other factors, perhaps less fixed, include our education, geography, intercultural encounters, employment status, and access to social supports.
Within the embrace of the universal, the dance of the particulars in our prayer lives manifests as delight in difference, a celebration of diversity in unity. Inclusive of our particular preferences, may we all join in the delight of this dance!
