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 October 3, 2025 as a short teaching at our online weekly prayer sit.
If prayer can be summed up in four words – Wow! Thanks. Please. Sorry. Perhaps prayer can be summed up also in four sounds – Gasp! Clap. Sigh. Cry.
Less practical, and more cosmic, even scientists search for sounds in the vast expanse of the universe, unheard by human ears, but nonetheless real and measurable – the Sounds of Silence.
We also recognize, especially in community, that to sing is to pray twice. Here, too, scientists have measured the vitality signs of people who chant regularly in community and have recognized a phenomenon of entrainment, when members of a group’s hearts start to beat in unison as they chant together.
It is no wonder that spiritual leaders like Hildegard von Bingen composed music for her community of nuns over one thousand years ago, well before science knew how to measure the impacts of sound as real. A further wonder that chant and praise are found in virtually every religious tradition. Sounds make real impacts in the living world, in our bodies, our minds, and our hearts. Prayer is sound. Prayer is real.
May we discern the fullness of our voices and offer them, both literally and metaphorically, in our prayer as sound!
