Hello everyone! This week, instead of a regular Stuff, I share a new article that I wrote about my unexpected and accidental prayer ritual. It’s relatively short (about 7-8 minutes) and you can also read it here, on the IHD website.
A few months ago, I accidentally started praying. Not the rote, cross-your-hands and bow-your-head prayers of my Christian upbringing, but an emergent, deeply personal form of prayer that evolved from my gratitude ritual. If you're unfamiliar with either prayer or gratitude practice, they might seem synonymous, but this shift has been one of the most profound in my life.
In my early twenties, I began experimenting with my own form of spiritual practice. I can trace my meditation and journal habits to this time. I also developed a pre-meal gratitude ritual. Before each meal, I would hover my hands above my plate and consider all of the factors that brought this food to me—everything from the lives of the chickens that laid my eggs to all of the hands that had to touch them and the miles they had to travel to arrive at my refrigerator. Gratitude is best when directed at a specific object and food is a great place to start. The wonders of modern cuisine offer much to be thankful for.
But after a while, this practice began to feel a little silly. Directing my ritual at such an abstract thing as the food system felt forced—generic gratitude for a commonplace, albeit wonderful, convenience—and I let it fade from my life.
I always knew that the greatest benefit from my meal-time ritual was the forced pause before eating. Learning to insert a bit of space between a stimulus and our response is the essence of mindfulness. For me, and perhaps most twenty-something male athletes, a plate of food is one of the most alluring things in the world and I'm a notoriously wolfish eater. As a kid, I used to scarf a bowl of Kraft mac n’ cheese without ever chewing. I've hardly improved.
In the last year, Marika and I have committed to a new pre-meal ritual that, at first, resembled my old practice. We were motivated by the mindful pause and the many physiological benefits. A few intentional breaths (with longer, exhales than inhales) transition your nervous system from a sympathetic state (fight or flight) to a parasympathetic state (rest and digest). Our new ritual is to join hands across the table, share a gaze, then close our eyes and begin. We never really discussed the specifics of how we each spend those few moments other than gratitude—for the day, for the meal, for each other.
Recently, Marika commented that I not only seem calmer and more at peace in general but that she detects an extra something special as I emerge from the practice. I confessed that in the last few months my gratitude ritual has morphed into something that I can only describe as prayer.
Until now, a gratitude practice meant, for me, simply manifesting a sense of gratitude by considering all of the blessings in my life and, in that moment of reflection, making myself feel gratitude. Humans have a remarkable ability to control our emotions by choosing what things we hold at the front of our attention. This is a vital skill to develop. But I think gratitude is most powerful, not as an abstract feeling, but as thanks to the source. When directed at a higher power or some force beyond our control or understanding, this is prayer.
Without realizing it at first, I shifted from conjuring up thoughts of the good things in my life to saying "thank you" for them. I began praying.
I was raised Christian but left the church as a teenager because I began to see the origin stories as absurd and the ways in which many Christians interpret and practice their faith as off-putting. However, I believe in a force beyond human understanding. You could call it God, the Tao, source, or anything you want. I don’t really care to define it. Rather than a singular creator, I see an intelligence in all things and a purpose beneath all interactions. The forces of the universe seem to me to express meaning as they desire to guide chaos into order.
I recognize the futility in attempting to rationalize the unknowable. But in my beliefs, I believe that I have the same experience that others throughout history have found in a relationship with a god or gods. There is an unknowable source that has led to my existence and the existence of everything that I will ever know. My thoughts, emotions, and instincts come from the same life force that animates the creation of all other things, both living and what we would simply call material. Would I be capable of such a richness of experience—of thinking, feeling, growing, and loving—if I were meant merely to survive long enough to pass along my genes? Such depth of engagement with the world seems superfluous and unlikely in a strictly inert universe. Sure, it is an act of faith, but I feel certain that I am meant to thrive.
A gratitude practice is a celebration of what is, regardless of the source. This trains us to focus our thoughts on the positive elements of our life and tunes us to perceive our circumstances in a more productive way. This is a valuable practice to be sure, but prayer brings something to our lives that a generic gratitude practice never can. Prayer requires faith, which is little more than trust in a force beyond our comprehension. Prayer is to give thanks for the why behind all of life’s whats. To pray is to let go of the myth of control—the modern notion that with our technological tools we can and should manage every aspect of our lives.
For most of history, humans thrived through the understanding that their highest aim was to bring themselves into harmony with their surroundings—other people, the natural world, and the lifestyle that followed from these connections. Nowadays we try to bend the world to our will. We aim to tame the unknowns in our lives and expand our sphere of control as broadly as possible. This is an infinite game that we cannot win and will never bring us the peace that we seek.
This is not to say that we should not seek and strive in life. Prayer, to me, is not about inaction—asking for what you want and expecting it to be granted. Just the opposite in fact. Prayer is a practice in amor fati, a love of fate. It is about embracing the world as it is, giving thanks for this existence and my opportunity to learn from it, and asking only for guidance in becoming what I am most meant to be.
My prayer ritual
Each time I pray, I follow a simple format. I don't feel that this is the universally correct way. I've only identified this format by examining what I was doing without realizing it. I focus on three aspects: giving thanks, action, and presence.
Giving Thanks
I start by simply saying "thank you" for all that is good in my life. I don't only focus on my healthy body, my amazing partner, and the delicious meal that I'm about to (slightly less wolfishly) devour, but also on the challenges that I face. Struggles are often the best gifts in life. They help us to discover who we are and what we are made of. We often learn more about ourselves in a few moments of discomfort than in hours of conscious study.
Giving thanks in this way feels entirely different than just conjuring up feelings of gratitude. Saying a sincere thank you to some force beyond me makes me feel that all that is good in my life was given to me, and not because I earned it, but because gifts are always arriving if we can learn to receive and acknowledge them. This is humbling and a very different experience than simply counting myself fortunate. The opportunity to live, and live well, is a gift.
Action and Guidance
Next, I ask: "please help me to...". I don't ask for stuff or concrete outcomes but for the strength and conviction to embody the values that I strive toward—the projects that I want to bring into the world, the qualities that I want to practice and ultimately embody, and the presence and humility to invest in the relationships in my life.
Whether there is a source out there that cares about the outcome of my life or not, this is easily the most rewarding part of my prayer. To take a few moments to sit with my vision of all that I aim to be is incredibly motivating and life-affirming. This might just be as mundane as an athlete’s pre-game visualization exercise or it could be a communion with the divine. It makes no difference to me.
Presence
I conclude my prayer with a few moments of presence. I let my whole body feel at ease and let my breathing become natural. I let my goals and my woes wash away for a few moments. If there is any way of feeling that we are, in fact, in connection with the divine it is in the present moment when we can manage to transcend the thoughts of both our future and our past that so incessantly spin us up. This is the state that we are always seeking in mindfulness meditation (although "seeking" is the wrong way to go about it). I have never so readily slipped into a state of presence than in the moments following a faith-driven release of ultimate control.
To live well, we must ask: what can I do to contribute to my own flourishing and the flourishing of the world? This question continues to animate most people today, whether they consciously see it or not. The answer is timeless. It runs through every religion and philosophical tradition. We are meant to strive for wisdom above folly, for virtue above vice, for connection above isolation. Prayer is a way to re-commit each day to this journey. It is not only a remembrance and a reaffirmation of our purpose but a realignment of how we might best seek it.
Keep walking Justin. The fact that you are committed to the ultimate Truth--will in fact, narrow your path, focus your mission and may just lead you back to where you began--but with a much deeper, relationship-driven and less ‘religious’ understanding.
Wonderful. My heart is gladdened to hear you are reconnecting with the Transcendent. This is a really good prayer + gratitude practice as well!