Prayer Connects Us With Everyone and Everything

Learning to Pray: How We Find Heaven on Earth
by Wayne Muller

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Our every word, thought, and action ripples into the world. Every step we take fertilizes the soil in which our children will plant their hopes and dreams. Every prayer we pray shapes the world for those who come after. And so before we speak, we must listen. What would benefit us all? What healing, if it came, would bring grace to both my loved ones and to me? When I pray for the healing of this cancer, this loneliness, this grief, I also pray for the healing of all who share my sorrow.

Swami Venkatesananda reminds us, "Any persons whom you have ever met, even if you have just exchanged a glance on a bus, have become part of your being, and consequently you are in some sense ultimately responsible for them. You carry them in your heart." When we commence our prayer with the word Our, we open our hearts and the whole world spills out before us. Here, we begin to realize that to pray is no small thing. It is nothing less than a sacred pilgrimage into the heart of the whole world.

Prayer Practice

Prayer is a doorway into heaven on earth. It can open and clear our eyes and ears, quicken our heart, and deepen our mindfulness, so that we may more easily discern where heaven lives in this moment, in this place.

Although I often sit in my room and pray in front of my altar - a small table with candles, a few precious photographs, gifts from loved ones, and objects sacred to me - I just as often pray when I walk, allowing the cadence of my step to accompany my prayers.

However you pray, it is useful to retreat to a quiet place without distraction or responsibility. As you integrate prayer into your daily life, allow your prayers to gently find their place in you, in their own way, in their own time. Simply use the rhythm of your breathing to calm the incessant jumble of thoughts and worries, and anchor your sense of presence in the body, here, in this moment, in this place.

As you begin your prayer with this single word, Our, you may wish to ask yourself this question: With whom am I praying? You may imagine inviting someone you love to sit beside you in prayer, perhaps a person who has brought you sanctuary and comfort. Perhaps you will invite more than one being, and find yourself encircled with the reassuring company of many loved ones.

You may also wish to invite into your prayers the company of all beings who stand in need of care, the children of the world, the creatures of the earth. We can even call on the entire host of heaven to pray with us.

As you sit quietly, imagine that the yearnings of your heart are like seeds that germinate slowly in the soil of time. There is no need for hurry. As you name all the true and secret things that need to be spoken, imagine that this is our prayer, to our God. You may also invite into your circle those who are in need of some particular comfort, healing, or care. These may be loved ones who are facing illness or loss, or may include the poor and hungry, or those who suffer violence or war. As you invite those for whom your heart feels compelled to pray, imagine we are all praying together for ourselves and for the healing of the world.

Remember this: When we pray, we never, ever pray alone.

Father

We are beloved children of a loving Creator, sons and daughters of a Mother-Father God.

The word Father is perhaps, for many, the most troublesome word in this prayer. First, it implies that God is male. Second, because we inherit a theology traditionally interpreted through the eyes and ears of Western European men, we are saturated with images of God as a dramatically bearded, old, white male.

These habitual perceptions of the Divine, the Great Spirit, as an exclusively masculine force call up images of a dominant, controlling patriarch. It seems to imply that the more feminine aspects of the Divine - compassion, wisdom, tenderness, and patience - are somehow left out.

Copyright © 2003 by Wayne Muller.

About the Author

Wayne Muller is an ordained minister and therapist and founder of Bread for the Journey, an innovative organization serving families in need. A graduate of Harvard Divinity School, he is Senior Scholar at the Fetzer Institute and a Fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences. He also runs the Institute for Engaged Spirituality and gives lectures and retreats nationwide. He is the author of Legacy of the Heart, a New York Times bestseller, and How, Then, Shall We Live? He lives with his family in northern California.