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 May 8, 2026 as a short teaching at our online weekly prayer sit.
Some people radiate the Light of holiness. We tend to want to call such figures using special titles like saints, mystics, gurus, bodhisattvas, and shamans, giving the impression that these folks have earned their radiance somehow, by putting in long hours or making extreme sacrifices. Sometimes, however, a baby is born with “old soul” eyes, already radiating with the Light of holiness. Other times, we have a simple encounter with someone whose very presence puts us at ease or leaves us with a sense of inspired delight. No special rites or titles are required in these encounters. We simply feel the radiance of the other person fully alive.
These ordinary encounters point to an aspect of holiness that is not special or elite, but rather, whole and complete. To radiate with the Light of holiness is to become wholly holy, that is, to allow, in freedom, all of the human faculties to become fully alive. These capacities are often latent within us, limited by the weight of cultural biases and interpersonal woundedness. Though latent, they already lie within, waiting to wake up and fill us with the subtle vibrations of living fully alive.
Prayer, in its many forms, helps us to remember and enact this hidden and latent wholly holiness. As a human activity that taps the divine reservoir of our sacred source and potential, acts of prayer help us to sift through the cultural and interpersonal layers of limitation that impede the shining Light within. Often countercultural, acts of prayer such as praise, reflection, contrition, rest, and solidarity, help us to break the mundane human habits that tend to keep our Light limited such as greed, hate, productivity, apathy, and perfectionism. Every act of prayer that wakes up our minds, hearts, and senses shines Light on the wholly holiness that is already within, waiting to radiate out.
May our lives and acts of prayer help us to radiate this ordinary way of being fully alive in wholly holiness!
