the first conversation

I recently drove past a church on my way to a lacrosse game. The big sign out front said, Worry Less, Pray More.

My first thought was, I’m so grateful I don’t go to a church that has one of those signs. My next thought was, I’m actually okay with that theology. (I’m typically not okay with the theology espoused on this particular sign.)

I suppose if you think of God as a man in the sky who grants wishes, the idea of prayer sounds pretty silly, like surrendering your worries to the tooth fairy.

I get that.

I’m certainly not going to attempt to define or describe God except to say that I believe God is Love. It’s the only thing that even remotely makes sense to me.

I pray in a variety of ways, the most common being a running monologue in my head.

I pray with paint on canvas, a pray with the BOCP at church, I pray when I bow and offer Namaste at the end of yoga class, I pray by writing in furious chaos on the pages of my journal, I pray by sitting in blessed silence and feeling my breath move.

My favorite prayer that uses words is, Take this, please, I don’t know what to do.

On Ash Wednesday, I began another type of prayer practice.

Early in the morning, when I sit down in the blue light of the living room, the sky outside still dark, I begin a list of things for which I am grateful. I add things to the list as the day goes on. I’m simply taking note of the big and small moments of delight and beauty that I encounter.

It feels good to pray in this way, to speak to Love in this way, amid all the worries and concerns and petitions, to simply say thank you for the good things.

And so prayer has become my first conversation of the day.

That’s not exactly true.

My first conversation of the day is with the dogs.

But after that, it’s prayer.

I say this in full understanding that prayer is a difficult word for many people, a trigger of sorts that calls to mind religious wounding and control dogma. I understand that when I use this word a wall will come down in the hearts of some, but it is the only word I have. A true word for the connection, the flow between the worlds, the give and take that happens in my heart.

I’m not sure why exactly, but when I saw that church sign I thought of being in my childhood back yard with its green picnic table and grapevine swing (okay, I had to climb over the back fence to get to the grapevine swing.)

I thought of the hours and hours I spent in that yard by myself leaving little treats for the fairies, lying on my back staring at the clouds.

(Do you remember how you would eventually feel that gravity was no longer working on you and you would grab handfuls of grass so that you wouldn’t be thrown off the planet into space?)

I spent so much time alone in nature but I never felt lonely. I always sensed a spiritual presence around me, a seer, I suppose, a companion or companions in the non-physical.

It occurs to me that perhaps that time in my life, when I was outside on my own making up stories, walking in the woods, throwing pebbles into the creek, was the time when I was the most engaged with prayer - not because I repeated a set of words, and not because of anything I believed, but because I was simply in my essence and in connection, organically.

I was myself.

There was no judge, no critic, no structure asking me to adhere to its rules, no governing body.

There was only me, nature, God, and we we were one.

Perhaps that is the true nature of prayer. Not even a “connection,” but oneness. A reminder of oneness, a reminder that the cosmic heart beats within me.

My answers are within me.

The path unfolds within me.

Love extends itself through me.

Maybe every moment of my day is a prayer.

This, I suspect, is true.

If so then prayer really is my first conversation. Me telling Rocky to hang on, I’ll be back to get him and carry him down the stairs after I’ve carried his brother down the stairs. Opening the back door to the cold morning air, the stars still in the sky, listening to the dripping hum of the coffee pot coming on, turning the switch on the salt lamps, taking Penny’s food to the front porch.

It’s all prayer.

It’s all Love.