Prayer is a powerful thing

Prayer comes in many forms. Meister Eckhart said that, “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘thank you’, that would suffice”.

If prayer is an expression of gratitude, I pray daily. Sometimes, the whole daylong. Prayer like this is an ongoing celebration of life.

Sometimes we use prayer to help others. We pray for their wellness and recovery. We pray that they find peace, love and good health in their lives. This type of prayer has remarkable power, and the stories of this type of power have been the inspiration for numerous books, television shows, websites and scientific studies.

However, even though I believe that there are many ways to pray, I believe that there is a certain beneficial tonality to prayer, as well as a non-useful one.

I was with a group of 14 women, celebrating one woman’s 60th birthday. This woman was beaming with radiance and spoke about how blessed she felt to have us in her life celebrating with her. After a heartfelt uplifting speech, another woman stood up, her face was crimson red, and with a tone of anger and indignation in her voice, asked if we could pray for those persecuted women in Tehran who were not as blessed as we were to be sitting there, laughing, celebrating and enjoying ourselves.

I do not believe that there is much power in a prayer that is spoken with a feeling of indignation, anger, or victimization. I felt that it would have been much more useful, for this woman to have stood up with the energy of love and celebration already present in the room, and used that beautiful energy to send blessings and love to women elsewhere in the world (like those in Tehran) to help them with their strength and courage in the face of challenge.

Prayer is magic for me. When I’m in a rut, - like very deep sinking-tires-in-the mud kind of rut - and I’ve tried everything without success (dancing, talking, you name it) to help myself feel more loving and more peaceful; when nothing else is working, then prayer for me, is my ever faithful go to solution. 

Prayer is about trust and patience that my prayers will be answered.  I do believe in a co-creative universe, where I co-create my life with universal love and goodness. When I’m in a rut, my peaceful surrender goes like this:  “God, it is thy will, not mine”. This helps me stand on higher ground again, and I resume my greater knowing: “God, it is our will together, thank you”.

Everyone has his or her final endpoint-go-to-plan when the shit hits the fan and when he/she is feeling miserable. For some people, unfortunately it’s alcohol.  For some it’s eating. For some it’s running marathons. For some it’s intellectualizing ‘til the cows come home.  It’s different for everyone. 

For me, it’s prayer. Thank you God for that.