On Praying All Ways

You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.
Kahlil Gibran

Do I pray “in my distress and in my need”? I would say I strive to have a prayerful orientation to how I lead my life. It’s just that I pray in many different ways, most of them not very traditional. The Holy Rosary, for example, doesn’t do much for me and a good or bad sermon can make or break the quality of my prayer at Mass. Prayer, from my perspective, should transform me as much or more as my circumstances. In fact, when I am transformed, the way I react to my life’s challenges is also transformed and it results in much improved circumstances. It also has the effect of leading to a much improved prayer life, so the cycle grows and grows.

So how did I pray during my recent time of distress and need? It depended on my circumstances. Sometimes it was a quiet, subdued kind of prayer, even mute on occasion. At those times I was so emotionally or physically drained, so spiritually out of sorts, that I merely rested in the conviction that I was in the arms of a loving, just, and merciful God who would know exactly what my needs were and the best way to attend to them. Other times I was in so much pain or was so angry that I could only sob uncontrollably and wrestle with a God that seemed distant and silent. From a distance it may have seemed like I wasn’t praying at all and it even seemed like that to me once in a while, but I know I was continuing to pray “all ways” because in the end I became a different person.

I once read a book that changed my attitude about prayer: Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer by David Steindl-Rast and Henri J. M. Nouwen. I used to worry that I didn’t pray well enough or often enough, but this book made me realize that living in an attitude of gratitude for God’s abundant love was the best kind of prayer: a constant one. There’s no room for guilt or perfectionism when I recognize my utter dependence on God’s loving care and celebrate it with joyful appreciation.

I am still growing and evolving, of course, and I have some good and some bad days like most everyone else. But I experience joy and affirmation more often than not, and I feel my heart overflowing with peace and gratitude very, very often. So these days, the days of my joy and abundance, it’s more likely that I will be singing or dancing or celebrating God’s goodness while sharing a meal with a loved one, watching a sunset, listening to my grandson’s gurgles, admiring a flower or a cloud or a building. It’s not a conventional way of prayer but it sure is deep and full of gratitude!