“I’ve been busier than a one-legged man at an ass-kicking contest.” That was just the beginning of his conversation. You can only imagine how colorful the rest of it was–complete with generous amounts of: inherited that nasty OCD, my third wife, people praying, two psychologists seeing her, and the whole church lifting her up. –A phone conversation in the booth next to me at Dunn Brothers coffee house.
As abrasive as his speech was to his long-forgotten friend (re: “Sorry I haven’t called you back; I’ve been busier…”) and my strange ears, I couldn’t help but wonder when his prayer turned into conversation and when it might turn back. Because to me, prayer is simply very special talking.
Prayer is the process of moving spiritual longings from our spirit to our physical minds and tongues and back to the spirit world of God’s listening. So when we talk, it simply makes sense that we could very well be praying.
When we speak, where do our words come from? It is a matter to contemplate. Are they streaming from spirit or from mind? In the end, it doesn’t really matter as long as we are aware of both. This is because prayer is transient. It moves from spirit world to earthly world effortlessly and thus connects our parts into a whole person. But we must be aware and we must be able to place the words into the left out world.
If your words are coming only from your mind, learn to put them into your spirit. Check in and see if your spirit need be concerned. Ask your spirit to lay a supplication before God. Connect your mind to spirit. If your words are coming from your spirit, make sure they travel through your physical mouth and back into your spirit to rest. This releases the mind from circumstantial control, from a timid human path of healing into a more bold spiritual grace. Why? Because prayer is transient and it must be released in order to do its work.
I am beginning to believe prayer is faith in true completeness, in healthiness of mind, spirit, and soul. It is letting the spirit voice its concerns and weights while at the same time letting the mind know one’s depth of person and place. Prayer is what creates peace within the battling self.
So be attentive to your words and to your spirit. Allow both to say what they feel need to said and in this way, you will be praying continually, should that be a desire of yours indeed. And remember, even latent conversations, the ones you always wanted to have but never did, can today be voiced and prayed in sweet humility and renewed fervency. “In all things pray continually.” I Thessalonians 5:16
Naphtalia 
“Prayer is what creates peace within the battling self.” This may be true – it’s not my experience, because I don’t pray, but if it is true then we must constantly pray every moment of our life in order to experience peace, other wise it will be fleeting as we shift our activities to the other things we need to do in our lives.
I would suggest a better and more simple way. Find a way to constantly experience gratitude for the amazing gift of human life we have been given. The secret lies in gratitude and appreciation. There is only one way to do that. Since out very breath is what keeps our heart beating, the source of our very existence, then find a way to constantly consciously experience the power behind the coming and going of the breath. Through this means, if the experience of peace truly exists, this is the place we would find it. In other words, go to the source of our very existence to find the peace we are looking for. If we can’t find that peace we are looking for at the source, then it certainly won’t exist anywhere else.
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