I Found My Prayer again.

Huh? What does this even mean? And how was it lost?...some might ask. I’ve noticed I can go back and forth. I can have phases of being very connected to my prayer and other times, not so much. As a spiritual director and one who considers himself an overall spiritual kind of dude, it would be nice to say I’m always connected to my heart, my soul, my prayer, and I know people who say that’s how they walk through the world, but I know there are times I forget. I turn away. My connection to the One Within feels distant, if not gone. My prayer, feels lifeless, if not forgotten or lost. Sometimes it’s at specific moments like if I look at the amount of federal income tax withheld from my retirement payment. Sometimes it may be over longer periods of time. It can feel like a minor distraction, or it can feel larger, like the floor which I stood on is gone, or the proverbial dark night of the soul.

In soulful Jewish circles we talk about our running and returning, from  Ezekiel’s trippy vision of G!d’s chariot (merkavah) and the four angels or beings running and returning. We are like those angels running and returning, running from ourselves, from Divinity, and then hopefully returning. In Judaism, we have specific rituals to remind us of and practice this return, and we’re currently in the time of year when we consciously do this. 

Rabbi Jay Michaelson has said that this act of returning is the Jewish version of enlightenment. Since as humans we will always have moments of disconnection or forgetting our essence. The times of returning are moments of remembering and perhaps even revelation. We turn away, and we re-turn back. Rabbi Alan Lew says it’s like the moments in meditation when we recognize that our mind has wandered, and we bring it back to the mantra, the breath or whatever we might be focusing on for the meditation, if anything. 

So, although I’d like to say that I always move through the world prayerfully guided by heart and soul, I can accept that there are times when I’m not so attuned, and this is just part of being human. 

Then something happens. Sometimes it’s because of something I do, but many times it’s a surprise. Something in my soul comes alive again. The connection to my soul’s voice and longing is reinvigorated. I remember, refind my prayer.

Prayer can be anything. It can be words, of course, or movement. It can be laughter or tears. It can be washing dishes, and, yes, maybe even paying taxes. Well, probably not paying taxes, especially now. 

When I remember it, it’s like greeting an old, welcome part of me once again, a dear friend whom I haven’t seen in a while. It is a return, a teshuvah. While I may never be so self-actualized that I’ll never again forget or turn away, over time and through practice, my awareness of when I’m off the mark arises more effortlessly and spontaneously, and I can return to that desired space more quickly.