A practice-level comparison of Ṣalāt, Tibetan Field of Merit, and Eastern Orthodox prayer. This piece looks at how prayer reshapes the body, attention, and inner life long before it reshapes belief.
“Stand in the right field long enough, and very little needs to be said.” And this is how we pray without ceasing.
This is so good. I have always had a hard time understanding, explaining what prayer actually is. And this is so helpful.
My dad always said “God is not Santa Clause.” and I have the understanding that prayer was about changing me not about getting the results I wished for.
Thank you so much for this article. The orientation, the posture, it’s like an ahah moment. I never really was Southern Baptist after all. Thank God. Heeeheee
Also, I’ve never liked the deconstruction idea for the same reason. I appreciate you and Joe Boyd’s approach. Love, kindness and humility go a long way. Blessings VMB.
This makes so much sense, intuitively. You have given me much to think about. I changed the way I prayed five years ago, and that led to many more changes....all of which I'm grateful for.
I love hearing that. That shift in prayer tends to ripple outward in ways you don’t expect.
One thing I’ve noticed is how different it feels to pray in the original languages. It asks more of you, but it also seems to bypass interpretation. Greek, Tibetan, Arabic—there’s a kind of resonance there that lands directly in the body and the heart before the mind gets involved.
It’s less about understanding every word and more about being tuned by the sound and structure itself.
Prayer addressing the core human problem of misorientation and offering the solution of remembering. Wow…yes! I just read this morning in Helminski’s Living Presence about the Islamic ritual prayer practiced 5 times a day. I was quite moved by it. I was wondering how one can incorporate this into one’s day whose culture and schedule is not amenable to it.
Start with setting the intention. Also, many people cannot do full prostrations or may be in a setting where they cannot. In either case, when the full prostration is called for, sit down, place hands flat on knees, and bend head as clow to knees as possible without discomfort. Check out the app https://salah.pro/
It helps with tracking times and direction.
Best examples I found of videos teaching how to do the prayers is here
Your framing of prayer as formation of attention and posture rather than belief management feels especially important. It echoes the older Christian insight of lex orandi, lex credendi—that prayer shapes belief long before belief is articulated.
It also raises a pastoral question: if different prayer structures form different emotional and spiritual climates, Western Christianity may be facing less a crisis of doctrine and more a crisis of formation. We may be trying to correct ideas while leaving untouched the practices quietly shaping them.
Two reactions. 1. A saying from the rooms of recovery. “You can’t think your way into better living. You have to live your way to better thinking.” 2. Isaiah 6:1-7.
That was one of the most helpful sayings that kept me sober (& still does). So simple, not always so easy, but it works (if you work it). Now I will go read Isiah, thank you, Kim 💟
My sobriety bday is Sunday & I still can't believe the miracle. Stopped saying "the way I drank (& drugged) I should be dead" because inevitably someone would say "if you should be dead, you would be" lol. Thanx for helping me remember, haven't heard that in awhile. That's why I keep going back - strong forgetter.
Fascinating VMB, really interesting from an observers point of view.
From my experience, when I taught children (4 too 11 year ols) about prayer the assumption was that I magically understood prayer despite belonging to a tradition that was, at best, conflicted about it. So I tried to learn, I found the mnemonic 'To Pippa' Thanksgiving, Oblation, Praise, Intercession, Petition, Pthat I only occasionally remember and Adoration, and I used that, it needed a bit of translation for the children but not too much. No confession though! Body orientation, posture, breathing and repeated phrases never mind anything else were just absent. I think it was an omission on my part, through ignorance but an omission all the same. I don't think many or any of the children will have remembered for long, but they remember the songs we used to sing.
Now, I pray rarely. I don't know how prayer sits with my understanding of God except: on clear dawns I stand facing the rising sun with my arms wide. It feels prayerful, I use no words.
I guess I am just a simple child. None of this makes any sense to me whatsoever.
When Love and Love’s Spirit fills you and becomes the breath of your life and the beat of your heart there comes an intimacy where communication is completely relational and in my experience transcends all of this.
No child has to go through any mumbo jumbo like this to interact with the father and mother that gave them life and cherish them.
The human love of my life and best friend, “gets me” often without a lot of talking required after 50+ years. More and more we read each others minds which makes us laugh with so much joy. It’s like THAT.
The intimacy that has evolved over the years is, for us, a word picture, of the Sacred Romance with Love/Our God. It grows more practical, more simple, more gentle, more magical without the need for all this complicated . . . I don’t even know what to call all this stuff guys. Although it feels very like the millstone Jesus reprimanded the Pharisees for putting around children’s necks.
Where in the world is the Simple Sacred Presence that even a child can enter? Where is the Breath of Relief and Recognition of knowing that in Love/God I live and move and have my being?
This is all so heavy with too much intellectualism. Talking it all to death when you could be savoring the Magic like dancing in the rain.
This all makes me incredibly lonely. I’m heading out to feel the grass on my bare feet and to listen to the creek and the birds sing and look at the stars while I hold hands and hearts with the Ones who Walk with Me and Talk with me and tell me I am Their own. Seriously. For reals.
I do not need to prostrate myself out in Loves Cathedral of Creation and Glory. Rather I lift up my face and my arms and embrace all the Beauty and Light that my Creators enfold me in. Their “burden” is lighter than air. I dance in Their freedom both physically and spiritually. No more fear, no worries . . .
I don’t mean to offend . . . I must be in a different dimension . . . I wish I had the words to explain you are making it all too complicated and hard. 😔🤦♀️
“Stand in the right field long enough, and very little needs to be said.” And this is how we pray without ceasing.
This is so good. I have always had a hard time understanding, explaining what prayer actually is. And this is so helpful.
My dad always said “God is not Santa Clause.” and I have the understanding that prayer was about changing me not about getting the results I wished for.
Thank you so much for this article. The orientation, the posture, it’s like an ahah moment. I never really was Southern Baptist after all. Thank God. Heeeheee
Also, I’ve never liked the deconstruction idea for the same reason. I appreciate you and Joe Boyd’s approach. Love, kindness and humility go a long way. Blessings VMB.
This makes so much sense, intuitively. You have given me much to think about. I changed the way I prayed five years ago, and that led to many more changes....all of which I'm grateful for.
I love hearing that. That shift in prayer tends to ripple outward in ways you don’t expect.
One thing I’ve noticed is how different it feels to pray in the original languages. It asks more of you, but it also seems to bypass interpretation. Greek, Tibetan, Arabic—there’s a kind of resonance there that lands directly in the body and the heart before the mind gets involved.
It’s less about understanding every word and more about being tuned by the sound and structure itself.
Maybe you can teach us some of those prayers one day?
Prayer addressing the core human problem of misorientation and offering the solution of remembering. Wow…yes! I just read this morning in Helminski’s Living Presence about the Islamic ritual prayer practiced 5 times a day. I was quite moved by it. I was wondering how one can incorporate this into one’s day whose culture and schedule is not amenable to it.
Start with setting the intention. Also, many people cannot do full prostrations or may be in a setting where they cannot. In either case, when the full prostration is called for, sit down, place hands flat on knees, and bend head as clow to knees as possible without discomfort. Check out the app https://salah.pro/
It helps with tracking times and direction.
Best examples I found of videos teaching how to do the prayers is here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2gx24YqI68&list=PLfPKmTgsKk9E8cRDf67SNAspawkjtvK_J
Thank you for the recommendations
Your framing of prayer as formation of attention and posture rather than belief management feels especially important. It echoes the older Christian insight of lex orandi, lex credendi—that prayer shapes belief long before belief is articulated.
It also raises a pastoral question: if different prayer structures form different emotional and spiritual climates, Western Christianity may be facing less a crisis of doctrine and more a crisis of formation. We may be trying to correct ideas while leaving untouched the practices quietly shaping them.
Thanks.
This is so delightfully educational. Thanks!
Two reactions. 1. A saying from the rooms of recovery. “You can’t think your way into better living. You have to live your way to better thinking.” 2. Isaiah 6:1-7.
That was one of the most helpful sayings that kept me sober (& still does). So simple, not always so easy, but it works (if you work it). Now I will go read Isiah, thank you, Kim 💟
Yay for sobriety!
My sobriety bday is Sunday & I still can't believe the miracle. Stopped saying "the way I drank (& drugged) I should be dead" because inevitably someone would say "if you should be dead, you would be" lol. Thanx for helping me remember, haven't heard that in awhile. That's why I keep going back - strong forgetter.
Congrats!!! Happy anniversary! Mine clean date is July 10, 1999.
Fascinating VMB, really interesting from an observers point of view.
From my experience, when I taught children (4 too 11 year ols) about prayer the assumption was that I magically understood prayer despite belonging to a tradition that was, at best, conflicted about it. So I tried to learn, I found the mnemonic 'To Pippa' Thanksgiving, Oblation, Praise, Intercession, Petition, Pthat I only occasionally remember and Adoration, and I used that, it needed a bit of translation for the children but not too much. No confession though! Body orientation, posture, breathing and repeated phrases never mind anything else were just absent. I think it was an omission on my part, through ignorance but an omission all the same. I don't think many or any of the children will have remembered for long, but they remember the songs we used to sing.
Now, I pray rarely. I don't know how prayer sits with my understanding of God except: on clear dawns I stand facing the rising sun with my arms wide. It feels prayerful, I use no words.
The P I forgot was Penitence!
I guess I am just a simple child. None of this makes any sense to me whatsoever.
When Love and Love’s Spirit fills you and becomes the breath of your life and the beat of your heart there comes an intimacy where communication is completely relational and in my experience transcends all of this.
No child has to go through any mumbo jumbo like this to interact with the father and mother that gave them life and cherish them.
The human love of my life and best friend, “gets me” often without a lot of talking required after 50+ years. More and more we read each others minds which makes us laugh with so much joy. It’s like THAT.
The intimacy that has evolved over the years is, for us, a word picture, of the Sacred Romance with Love/Our God. It grows more practical, more simple, more gentle, more magical without the need for all this complicated . . . I don’t even know what to call all this stuff guys. Although it feels very like the millstone Jesus reprimanded the Pharisees for putting around children’s necks.
Where in the world is the Simple Sacred Presence that even a child can enter? Where is the Breath of Relief and Recognition of knowing that in Love/God I live and move and have my being?
This is all so heavy with too much intellectualism. Talking it all to death when you could be savoring the Magic like dancing in the rain.
This all makes me incredibly lonely. I’m heading out to feel the grass on my bare feet and to listen to the creek and the birds sing and look at the stars while I hold hands and hearts with the Ones who Walk with Me and Talk with me and tell me I am Their own. Seriously. For reals.
I do not need to prostrate myself out in Loves Cathedral of Creation and Glory. Rather I lift up my face and my arms and embrace all the Beauty and Light that my Creators enfold me in. Their “burden” is lighter than air. I dance in Their freedom both physically and spiritually. No more fear, no worries . . .
I don’t mean to offend . . . I must be in a different dimension . . . I wish I had the words to explain you are making it all too complicated and hard. 😔🤦♀️