More Than One Way to Pray

People pray in diverse ways. Many of us carry the conventional notion of prayer as kneeling down with hands clasped, and talking out loud to God. This is just one of the forms prayer can take. In the previous post, I referenced Rev. Manish Mishra’s sermon, “A Thousand Ways to Pray.” Mishra’s title captures the idea that prayer can take a multiplicity of forms. Prayer is the creative practice of doing what connects you with God.

In Rev. Jan’s Nielsen’s 2002 sermon “Listening to Your Life”, she writes “prayer is really about opening the heart.” She adds, “Prayer can be whatever brings us to a heart place.” Nielsen notes that prayer can take the form of “journal writing,” “singing,” or “sitting in stillness and silence.”

The more I learn about Unitarian Universalist approaches to prayer, the more I am awed by the variety of ways people effectively open their hearts to the divine.

One approach to learning how to pray is to ask yourself a few more questions: What activities give you a sense of connection with yourself and with the wonder of the universe? How can you make these activities a more regular and intentional part of your life?