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 November 21, 2025 as a short teaching at our online weekly prayer sit.
A few years back, I read a line of teaching from a Sufi teacher, Kabir Helminski, that took my breath away in excitement. He referred to latent human faculties that all of us have, but that many of us are unaware of. He suggested that as we wake up in our awareness of these latent human faculties, our entire being may vibrate from the power of remembering these capacities within and directing them toward goodness and love. In reading the words of his teaching, I remembered my own longing to become fully alive.
Sometimes, we tap wisdom from a tradition other than our own in order to stumble out of sleep and wake up again. I am grateful for Helminski’s teaching on the power of Presence in remembering our latent faculties. I am also grateful that my own Christian tradition points to similar remembrance. The four-tiered ladder of contemplation in the prayer method of lectio divina, formalized by a Carthusian monk around the year 1,000, holds a similar invitation to tap into the fullness of human capacity through head (reading), the heart (meditating and praying), and the senses (contemplation). While Guigo II did not name as many latent faculties as Helminski does, the core of the invitation is similar: use all the gifts you’ve got!
Another contemporary spiritual teacher, Suzanne Giessman, recently offered the image of a roll of toilet paper to offer her own invitation in line with these other teachers. She emphasizes the three energy centers, well-known in Eastern spiritual teaching of the head, the heart, and the hara. (Note: she uses the traditional “H” word in the belly center to play with the “H” illiteration). In her teaching, she suggests that the core of the human being is like the core of cardboard at the center of a roll of toilet paper – a solid, yet empty structure that holds the form of “paper” around it.
The work of spiritual practice, the work of prayer is to keep the core open, to clear out the debris so the channel can be empty. With an open, empty core, we are better equipped to tap the flow of all 3 energy centers. We are better able to awaken the latent faculties. We are better able to rest in the fourth layer of emptiness in Guigo’s contemplation.
In short, when we clear the clutter and make room for our God given human capacities, our prayer enables us to become fully alive, vibrating with the Resonance of Love on the path toward healing & wholeness!
