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 September 26, 2025 as a short teaching at our online weekly prayer sit.
In one sense, prayer is eternal because it is never-ending. Especially in periods of social upheaval, when times are tough, it seems that we pray for the same things over and again. That the children will have enough to eat. That the violence will stop. That families and communities may thrive. The repetitive quality of these never-ending prayers resounds the eternal.
In another sense, prayer is eternal because it is expansive. Like the pebble in the lake that sends out ripples, like the butterfly’s wings that build a puff of air up into a storm, our prayers of healing and of actions for the common good mark shifts in one generation that impart those to come. The transformative quality of expansive prayer resounds the eternal.
In a third sense, prayer is eternal because it is silent and still. In the sweet spot between past and present, in the moment we call now, our prayers of stillness and silence can help us to cross the bridge, to make connections across the veil of life and death, to join our voices in the chorus of voices of the ones who have gone before us and who will come after us. The ancestral quality of our prayers of silence and stillness resounds the eternal.
When our prayers go on in repetition, transform through expansion, and speak in silent communion with the ancestors, they are eternal. May we offer blessing in prayer forever and ever. Amen!
