A reflection by Br. Will White, CMJ
“I have to admit, I have not prayed in a while and I’m not sure how to address it,” my friend recently confessed over text. “It’s almost like I have prayer avoidance.”
This isn’t the first person who has shared something like this with me in the last several months and, if I’m being honest, my prayer-life has also slipped. For me, the absence of weekly and in-person worship, gathering with friends, just regular human interactions have left me struggling to focus on prayer the way I otherwise might. I was ashamed of this at first. As usual, I pressured myself into thinking that as a deeply spiritual person, a monk, someone called into ordained ministry, I should be “better” at praying. It’s sad how easily we shame ourselves for such common and human-like actions instead of digging a little deeper to see what’s really going on. The fact of the matter is we all go through fluctuations in our prayer rhythms at one time or another and sometimes there are real and valid reasons worth exploring.
In the case of my own “prayer desert” I have noticed just how often I find myself zoning out instead– you know those times when you just sit there staring out the window or laying down on the couch to just turn your brain off for a while. I thought at first, I must be doing this out of COVID boredom, but I realized that the inner voice would go quiet after a while and then a single thought or image would materialize in my consciousness. Whatever my reason for doing this it was unintentional meditation, pure and simple. The most common thought was some silly little thing that made me smile that day. I wasn’t trying to think of those things. They just seemed to pop up one by one.
This repetitive action I kept finding myself in reminded me of something Richard Rohr says. “Prayer is sitting in the silence until it silences us, choosing gratitude until we are grateful, and praising God until we ourselves are an act of praise. Mature prayer always breaks into gratitude.”
I have discovered (especially more recently) that gratitude opens the doorway to the soul. When we let ourselves fall into an ocean of gratitude, we learn to see our whole existence as a gift. Not just the joyful parts, but even the sorrow weaves the threads that make up our entire self. What a gift to come to know that person– that authentic child of God. God sees and loves every part of us, the wounded and the healed. Don’t you want to learn to love yourself in that same way? I sure do.
Authentic gratitude, which walks hand-in-hand with mercy and grace, is not something to be taught but realized. We receive slivers of it from time to time but the more we can practice that kind of prayer that Richard Rohr describes the more we fall into that ocean, and the more we move to the deepest part of ourselves where God already dwells. It often takes great strength and practice to incorporate our pain into our gratitude. But once we cross that threshold, we begin to understand Jesus’ words, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, … for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:29-30) And in Him we will find rest.
So, if you are someone who has been struggling to find focus in your prayer-life, try just sitting quietly from time to time– with no agenda. See where the Spirit leads you in your thoughts and let yourself go there. You might be surprised to find a moment of gratitude which unlocks a whole new door to a Divine Love just waiting for you.
