One morning last week I gave myself permission to “pray a sunrise.” Permission because I have a stale religious message rumbling around in my head that insists there’s only one way to accurately or appropriately pray. (The Catechism: “the raising of one’s mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God.”) I sat in stillness, no raising, no words or requesting, eyes and heart imbibing the blaze of colors in the dawn’s sky. After this prayer, I arose with a peaceful heart united with the Holy One and a desire to give of my best self throughout the day.
While there may be folks who are completely satisfied with how they pray and the consequent development of their relationship with the Holy One, I’ve learned from others how they often desire a firmer and ever more meaningful way to reach spiritual depth, continued growth in virtue, and greater serenity. I’m grateful for recently coming across a well-read resource that enlivens and re-enthuses my desire for these things.
In my older years, I’ve been returning to books from earlier years that provided valuable insights and encouragement regarding the inner life. Not long ago this led me to pick up Pat Schneider’s How the Light Gets In. There I re-found a story she relates about praying:
“There is a tale of a rabbi who was famous for his great prayers. One day, after a particularly brilliant display of his public praying, an angel appeared and told him that he was doing fairly well, but a man in a nearby village was better at praying. The rabbi went in search of the man and found him to be an illiterate tradesman. The rabbi asked, “How did you pray on the last holy day?” The man told him that he couldn’t even read—he only knew the first ten letters of the alphabet—so he felt inadequate to pray. ‘So I said to God. ‘All I have are these ten letters; take them and combine them however you want so that they smell good to you.’”
Pat Schneider follows this story with these insights:
“To pray is to open oneself completely, intimately, into the Presence that is beyond our ability to name. And we have so few letters! And the ones we have are sometimes very confusing. …Growing to maturity requires an incredible balancing act if we are to live at peace with our own portion of letters among the many alphabets, the many understandings of mystery. …prayer is an act of deep vulnerability. It is so easy for us to mistrust our own ten letters of the alphabet. But if we do not reach into inner and outer space—for morning stars sing together in both—we may miss the most exquisite relationship human life offers.”
Each night before sleep I eagerly anticipate the coming morning when I’ll have the precious gift of prayer-time. Sometimes “nothing happens” during this period of stillness. Yet, I consider it to be the most valuable part of my day. I trust the Holy One to receive my meditation and reflective reading, to make of them something “that smells good.” I believe that the way I pray is not nearly as important as the reason I pray, the intention I bring to this quiet vigil—to be united with the Source of Peace, the Great Love enfolding each and every one of us.
Abundant peace,
Joyce Rupp
