Everyday Life Is the Prayer

My mom gave me the book 'Simple Abundance, a Daybook of Comfort and Joy' - by Sara Ban Breathnach - about 10 years ago. I've read it off and on over the years and took out of it what was most pertinent to my life at the time. Life has changed so much and the entries have different meanings these days. Here is my Simple Abundance entry for you for the week. This one spoke to me and had me nodding my head thinking to myself "yeah, yeah." I hope it touches you too.

More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.
-Alfred, Lord Tennyson

In the beginning was the Word.
And the Word was with God.
And the Word was God.
Might I have a word?

Some women know they pray. Other women think they don't because they aren't down on their knees morning and night. But they're up in the dark with sick children, visiting an elderly parent on their lunch hour, supporting the dreams of those they love with their work, helping a friend bear grief or rejoice, nourishing bodies and souls. This, too, is prayer.

For weather we realize it or not, with every breath, with every heartbeat, women pray. We pray with desire, longing, hunger, thirst, sighs, remorse, regret. We pray with disappointment, discouragement, despair, disbelief. We pray with anger, rage, jealousy, envy. We pray with pleasure, contentment, happiness, exultation, joy. We pray with gratefulness, acknowledgment, appreciation, acceptance, relief. We pray when we comfort, cheer, console. We pray when we laugh. We pray when we cry. We pray when we work and play. We pray when we make love or make a meal. We pray when we create and admire creation. One way or another, we pray. Everyday life is the prayer. How we conduct it, celebrate it, consecrate it. It's just that some prayers are better than others. Conscious prayers are the best.

In its purest form, prayer is conversation. Communion. Connection. Intimacy. Prayer is the dialect of Divinity. Prayer is actually the authentic conversation because you don't have to hold back; you can say whatever needs to be said, exactly the way you want to express it, when you want to express it. You won't be judged. You won't risk losing love, instead, by praying you will increase your awareness of it. You won't have to phrase your words carefully lest there be misunderstandings, because you can't be misunderstood. Even if you don't know what you want or need, Spirit knows what you're about to say, ask, beg, scream, or praise before you utter a syllable.

Then why do we need to lift up our voice in prayer?

Because it's not good for women to be silent. We need to get real life off our chests. Get whatever's bedeviling us out into the open, so that we can get on with it. We can't do that when we're stuck, and women do get stuck, in a kind of self destructive holding pattern, when they're silent. "Every person's life is lived as a series of conversations," Deborah Tannen tells us. Women pray because we need to talk to Someone who's really listening.