prayer

Prayer is hoping you are doing well then seeing a hummingbird at my rose of sharon.

Wrapping my dog’s medication in soft bread.

Remembering all of the earlier versions of myself with respect and fondness.

Deep night, the dome of stars, locating Venus in the sky.

Prayer is the oar going into the water; the flame igniting the incense; tracing my finger across the map of hiking trails; diving into the dark; noticing that breath is illumination.

I pray when I walk, grateful for the ground beneath my feet.

Every time I say thank you and feel it in my bones.

When I gently brush the hair away from your face.

When I close my eyes and remember the sound of coyotes as they run across the deck at night.

I pray with my imagination, with my memory, with my longings, in pleasure.

Candlelight is prayer; turning up the music, knowing all the words.

Joy is a prayer.

The hot cup of coffee with oat milk; the flower essence under my tongue.

Prayer doesn’t make things happen or prevent things from happening.

But it does change things. It changes everything.

Prayer is a remembering; the acknowledgement of what is.

I pray when I allow myself to feel the wholeness of the moment, no matter how beautiful or painful it is.

When I stand beneath the tree, barefoot, in a long dress, and allow my body to be moved by the energy of love.

When I stand in front of a canvas and allow paint to move through me.

When I say yes to your invitation, when I put down my weapons, when I accept my sorrow, when I listen to the silence and hear that in fact, it hums.

Prayer shows me the substance of which I am made, of which you are made.

Reminds me that God is within me; the voice of God speaks within me; my heart is the chamber, the temple, the vessel.

God is a love buried deep inside me, wound tightly into my cells. It is when I move, when I dance, when I sing, when I laugh, when I paint that I free them.

I set God free when I pray through creation; God, the creator, the alpha and omega.

Prayer doesn’t judge or condemn or criticize. Prayer doesn’t assume to know what’s best.

Prayer sets me free, too.

Free into the love of God. The Love that is God. The God that is Love.

When I pray, I remember who and what I am.

I remember who and what you are.

When I pray I cast an invisible net around you, not a net that confines, a net of support, a net of light, a net of release, of truth.

I pray first for those I love, then the world - those I don’t know, the earth herself, then me.

I pray us like a lotus unfolding its petals one by one; like dragonfly wing shimmering in the sunlight; like a jazz band swaying a funeral beat down a New Orleans street.

When I place a tender plant into a terracotta vase, that is prayer.

Washing the dish is a prayer.

Prayer is my heart writing you this letter over and over and over again, until I get it right.