The Nature of Prayer

Often, various images come to us when we think of prayer. Some people think of religious and pious people kneeling in holy places, clutching prayer beads, while others think of other religious and pious people bowing towards a certain point and placing their heads upon mats, chanting holy words and answering the call to prayer.

While those are lovely images and very soul inspiring ones, there are many things that could be a prayer. It is not necessarily any one thing, but can be a number of different things, depending upon a person’s mood, frame of mind, emotional and spiritual state as to how they pray, if they are religious or spiritual people. (And  being religious and spiritual are two separate things, but they can go hand in hand for an individual.)

For some, and at times for all, prayer is an expression of joy, laughter, song, happiness, praise, and a deep soul moving freedom. For others, and at other times for all, prayer is tearful, painful, begging, pleading, sorrowful, needing of help, and a reaching out to God, the Goddess, or the Universe as a means receive blessings, either for themselves or for another that is sorely needed.

Prayer can be demonstrated in dance, song, poetry, giving a gift, helping another, or silence. It can be done while cooking, making love, doing laundry, washing dishes, cleaning, driving, or writing. It can even been done while doing homework (I know this all too well, but that was mainly for college algebra and I was praying for divine interference with that particular class).

To put prayer in a box of what it needs to be and how it should be done, limits the power of the divine and also our spirituality. If you pray better while you are dancing, great! If you pray better in a closet, in secret and in silence, that’s great too! But each person is different and, as with God, there is no one size that fits all.

The nature of prayer is complicated, and it cannot be limited to any single thing for all people. Prayer is something that can ease burdens by simply the feeling of sharing the burden. Prayers can be written down in a journal or on a notebook, if it helps you focus more- basically, prayers can be done anywhere and can take any form. It is not up to us to decide what is true prayer and what is not. Any type of communication with the divine is prayer of some shape. This is the nature of prayer and it transcends all planes.