Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Pray as you can, not as you can’t
For Elizabeth Nordquist, prayer is what she calls an “organic practice.” As a pastor and spiritual director, she teaches people to pray, and she lives a life of prayer herself. But at present, she is undergoing a time of intense bodily pain and treatment that is making prayer difficult. “I have been stopped short by my body,” she writes, “and my mind and spirit have come tumbling after.” She goes on to write, “Between my physical discomfort and my medicinal medical haze, I can’t sustain and practice prayer the ways with which I am familiar. But I so want to keep connected with the Holy One, the Mystery We Call God!” So how is she solving her dilemma? Read the simple practices she is following. I think you’ll find guidance and inspiration for your own praying. I know I have. She also draws on a book by Jean Gil that shows how we can let go of the “oughts and shoulds of prayer” and just rest in God’s loving presence. This post is from Elizabeth’s A Musing Amma blog on Patheos.
