“She became a warrior far superior to any epic hero. She became a giant on her knees. With a sword in one hand she battled the enemies of death and disease, and with her other hand stretched toward heaven she kept beseeching God’s help and His mercy.” – Bishop T.D. Jakes
I feel blessed that I was taught to pray at a very young age. In fact, I have never stopped praying, and I have expanded my horizons beyond my Catholic upbringing to include meditation, chanting, drumming, dancing, and even gardening and cooking as a form of prayer. Praying is one of the most natural and utterly beautiful parts of my life, and I watched my mother get on her knees every night of her life to pray. For that, I have a prayer of deep gratitude.
But what is prayer and how can dancing or drumming or gardening be a form of prayer? The key is intention, and you do not even have to believe in God to pray! You simply need to align yourself with the highest expression of your own desire.
There are different kinds of prayer, such as the prayer of gratitude, which we know now changes our brain chemistry to help us feel calmer and happier. A 2015 article in the Journal of Personality and Differences showed that higher levels of gratitude were associated with higher levels of personal well-being, greater life satisfaction, and lower levels of psychological distress.
There is also prayer of invocation, which is what we classically think of as prayer. It is when we invoke or petition for support from a higher power, a calling forth through prayer, incantation, concentration, projection or visualization. It is a way of summoning power from an unseen force or source, to influence the physical world in a specific way.
Evocation is the coming forth of energy or Spirit in response to an invocation, which comes as a downpour of light, often called Grace,
Living on planet Earth has always been a balancing act of gravity and Grace. As the mystic and political activist Simone Weil says in Gravity and Grace, “All the natural movements of the soul are controlled by laws analogous to those of physical gravity. Grace is the only exception. We must always expect things to happen in conformity with the laws of gravity unless there is supernatural intervention.”
There are conditions under which the grace and strength of a higher plane may be brought down to a lower one and expand exponentially. This seems to be possible only when a special channel is opened for the moment by sincere effort on the part of human beings. In other words, miracles do happen. There are countless instances when something physically impossible occurs due to this powerful force, such as when two mothers lifted a 1.1 ton car off a boy’s body.
The Spiritual Law of Grace speaks of Grace as a kind of Divine expression of mercy bestowed upon human beings. It dissolves karma, changes matter, and creates miracles. Our Divine selves, or Souls, accepted the awesome opportunity to become embodied beings on the Earth-plane to experience life as fully as possible, particularly the emotions we feel. We are always at choice, having free will to co-create our lives to the most beautiful and perfect expression of our desires.
When we invoke the Spiritual Law of Grace⎯to transmute and uplift our emotional feelings to heal our relationships, bodies, and even our financial struggles through prayer⎯we must open ourselves to receive. Your prayer causes you to focus, and the Law of Attraction causes everything in the Universe that’s in vibrational harmony with your focus to come to you.
Yet, as the American novelist, Flannery O’Connor says, “All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and change is painful.” So it is more “normal” for people to focus on their problems than on their desires! It takes courage to pray for what you truly want!
We can offer Grace to others through compassion, empathy, forgiveness, mercy, and love. Each time we do this we open our hearts to receive an inflow of Divine love and mercy, which is truly supernatural intervention.
Whenever the thought or feeling you send out is solely self-serving, the energy which it produces moves in a closed curve, and thus inevitably returns and expends itself. But when the thought or feeling is absolutely unselfish and for the benefit of others, its energy rushes forth in an open curve, and pierces through into the plane above because only in that higher condition can it find room for expansion. In the breaking through such a thought or feeling opens a door or channel through which Divine force pours itself into the human realm, not only for the one experiencing this, but for the Greater Good.
This force is always available to us when we ask. In Buddism, this kind of prayer is called metta, which is the practice of loving-kindness, or the opening of the heart toward ourselves and others. The result of the descent of Divine energy is a very great strengthening and uplifting of the one who has invoked, which then radiates outward to everyone else a powerful and positively influencing way.
In truth, if we pray for the benefit of others, our prayers carry the greatest power.
There is one more kind of prayer I truly enjoy experiencing. I call it a prayer of awe and it and it naturally elicits a prayer of praise. It is when you are so overwhelmed with the beauty of a moment in nature, with another person, or just the fact that you are alive, that your cup runneth over. We often cry in these moments. It is an exquisite blend of gratitude, humility, and praise at the power of life. These moments offset all expressions of darkness in our world and call forth a great light that is love that is life.
May you have more and more moments of awe as your days unfold.
May this fill you to then flow your love toward others.
