Prayer is the complementary practice to meditation. Like meditation, prayer can be a powerful shared experience or, though silent, an equally potent solitary one. There is a simple, traditional adage that is useful to those new to spiritual practice that says, "prayer is speaking to God and meditation is listening to God." That "speaking" to God may be the spontaneous eruption of our minds and hearts or can be a formal process of recitation. As our spiritual life deepens, there is less divide between prayer and meditation as one state can flow into the other, back and forth. This flow is an aspect of the seemingly two realities realities we live in--our "everyday worldly life", now ravaged by the Pandemic, and our spiritual life which transcends the turmoil of the world of separation, fear and conflict. Prayer is our means of turning to the transcendent, to the larger life, to the Source for help, understanding, and solutions to the problems, suffering , and longings of daily life. Anglo-Catholic writer/scholar Evelyn Underhill wrote that humans are capable of being amphibian creatures, equally at home in the etherial realm of spirit as well as on the solid ground of the world. But realistically, she wrote: "We mostly spend (our) lives conjugating three verbs: to Want, to Have, and to Do...forgetting that none of these verbs have any ultimate significance, except so far as they are transcended by and included in, the fundamental verb, to Be." *
In prayers during the Pandemic, there are so many things we all want--want to have, want to do, want for other--those we know personally and those whose stories we have heard. There is so much that we want for our future and their future, so much that we fear will be taken from us. Some of our wants arise from the fullness of our Being and our instinctual compassion for others. Some arise from cultural conditioning and the wants of others superimposed on us. Inner quiet, the time of "stillness" sorts the true from the false, and returns us to clarity. Try weaving moments of stillness and silence in your prayers, however you pray. Pause to listen. (Susan Nettleton)
For more thoughts on the maturing process of prayer from the website, follow the link:
https://hillsidesource.com/maturinginprayer
*Evelyn Underhill, Christopher L. Webber (2006). “Advent with Evelyn Underhill”, p.43, Church Publishing, Inc.