"Pray without ceasing. Do not quench the Spirit.” -
Thessalonians 5:17, 19
After high school, I went off to Chicago to train at a theater conservatory as an actress. I was the one who was going to make it big someday. I had huge dreams built up and ready to go…until I got to the first day of class. Here I met all of the high school superstars. Here I became lost. Here I would be torn down and built back up into someone different. I remember in particular having to take a class called Voice and Speech. What I now recognize (and am eternally grateful for!) as a year of practicing the fine yogic art of pranayama, I once thought of as stupid torture and an excuse to fall back asleep in a sea of bolsters and blankets. I thought, out of pride: I have already conquered the heights of “greatness” on-stage, why am I stuck on the floor, staring at the ceiling, humming through my lips like a soft ocean breeze?! S-T-U-P-I-D. Did I really choose to go to college for this?!
Years later, I would find myself in the same predicament with prayer. I was a Catholic youth minister, a mom raising a son alone, and a single woman maneuvering through the dating world. There was no time for personal prayer. I built up dreams of success and how I was going to conquer the world. I prayed all the time in church…it counts, right? I would think: I do it all GOD. Taking time to pray, just You and me, is torture. I can’t sit still for a minute much less an hour and we always talk anyway God…every excuse not to come to God in prayer. As years went by, I would encounter people with a daily prayer life and think: well, I’m still stupid, I have not figured this prayer thing out…I’m just not meant for it. That daily discipline is for holy people. I am a fraud. I will encourage people to do what I have failed to do.
Fast forward to now. What has changed? After many attempts, I have finally found sync with a daily discipline. I don’t “do” prayer like anyone else. As a matter of fact, I learned that no one does prayer the same. There is not one way, no method…it is a process. It takes time. Every day is a little step in the process of prayer. Just as with breathing practice in college, when I realized prayer can intentionally be broken down into steps of a larger process, I was not so overwhelmed with getting started and taking the baby steps towards a more mature spiritual life. I found joy in little discoveries and found my ability to focus lasting longer and longer. It didn’t (and still doesn’t) have to be an hour…it just needed to be intentional. It wasn’t about success or failure…it just needed to be done. Now when I dive into the process of prayer, even if I get lost or distracted that day, I have not failed. There is no failure in prayer.
DUH. D. U. H. That is my current rally cry. D.U.H. stands for divinity, unity, and humbleness and they are the steps in my process. I seek the Divine One and then I seek the divinity in myself. I unify my divinity with the divine all around me and created for me. I work to maintain my humbleness in the midst of great success and great failure in the world. It is not perfect. I struggle with this humbleness all the time. I repeat: All. The. Time. A treasured book “Bread for the Journey” by Henri Nouwen states: “We are beautiful but also limited, rich but also poor, generous but also worried about our security. Yet beyond all that we are people with souls, sparks of the divine. To acknowledge the truth of ourselves is to claim the sacredness of our being, without fully understanding it. Our deepest being escapes our own mental or emotional grasp. But when we trust that our souls are embraced by a loving God, we can befriend ourselves and reach out to others in loving relationships.” Trust the process. Pray always and all ways and keep the Spirit alive in your life!