When Prayer Becomes Silence

Thinking About Prayer

“I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention.”

— Mary Oliver

I woke up this morning thinking about prayer.

Not praying, mind you. Just pondering about this thing we call prayer and wondering if we really know what we are talking about.

Is it a conversation? With whom, exactly?

Many people describe prayer that way. A conversation with God. But if prayer is conversation, what makes it good is the willingness for both sides to listen.

Not just thinking about what I want to say next. To have a meaningful conversation, each party must know how to listen…and practice it

That may be my favorite understanding of prayer.

The kind that quiets my own voice long enough for something else to be heard.

But there is another possibility.

Perhaps prayer is simply being present to Mystery.

The Careless Name

I grew up with “God” as the focus of my prayers…and of my life.

“He” was the one who taught right and wrong—or at least that was my childhood understanding. All those rules seemed to originate somewhere in the heavens.

But as I grew older I began to wonder about the boundaries of that understanding.

Did God also tell my parents what time I should go to bed? Or how I ought to behave on a date when I got older?

Exactly what is the domain of this invisible divine presence whose name we toss around so casually?

“Oh God, would you look at that!”
“Dear God, what’s next?”
“God, do you believe what just happened?”

Why do we begin expressions of surprise or frustration with the name of God?

Is that prayer?

I don’t think so.

For me, the name of the Holy is too vast to be used as conversational punctuation. Almost like a verbal “ahem.”

When we say “Oh God” in that way, we are rarely trying to get God’s attention. We are trying to get each other’s.

Somewhere along the way the name itself becomes casual…handled with the same carelessness as a beach ball tossed back and forth on the sand.

* * * * * *

“I have lived on the lip of insanity, wanting to know reasons…
knocking on a door.
It opens.
I’ve been knocking from the inside.”
— Rumi

* * * * * *

Why I Use the Word Mystery

Someone once asked me why I use the word Mystery for God.

The answer is simple. I believe the Divine is ultimately unknowable.

The only thing I feel certain about is that this presence is Love.

And it is.

Period.

What separates God from me is not a long list of attributes—wisdom, purity, compassion, omniscience. It is the awareness that whatever I think I know about the Divine is only a tiny fraction of the truth.

A twinkle of light in a vast spectrum.

A single note in a rhapsody of love.

Enough to recognize the music…without pretending I composed it.

A Know-Nothing and the Know-It-All

Nor do I believe my spiritual journey is meant to lead me toward fully knowing God, unless there is an element here of ‘knowing’ with deep intimacy. But knowing with head knowledge, with understanding, well…I cannot embrace that kind of knowledge when talking about God.

If someone asked me today, “Do you know God?” my honest answer would be an unqualified no.

And, interestingly enough… that is not on my bucket list.

What I long for instead are moments.

A flicker of divine grace.
A sudden wave of compassion for a stranger.
A quiet experience of awe in the middle of silence.

These are the things I seek to know.

I could spend the rest of my life reading the Bible and every spiritual book ever written and still never truly ‘know’ God. To imagine otherwise would make me the ultimate “know-it-all.”

Were you ever told that in school?

If I were to give God a second name—after Mystery—it might actually be that.

The Know-It-All.

Not in a scolding sense.
In a holy one.

Because in the presence of such wisdom, mercy, and love…I am clearly the know-nothing.

The God We Create

Humans have a curious habit.

We make God in our own image.

Once we do that, we begin assigning the divine the same attributes we understand about ourselves. We project our own values, fears, and expectations onto the heavens.

And then we spend centuries writing, reading, debating, teaching, and praying about the image we have constructed.

I am not entirely sure any of that brings us closer to the Divine.

It may only make us feel closer, as ‘chosen’ because now we ‘understand.’

Where I Feel Closest

The place I feel closest to God is usually silence.

Standing beside the ocean, hearing nothing but the waves and my own heartbeat.

No voices.

Not in my head or outside it.

No explanations about who or what God is.

Only the quiet awareness that God is.

The Beingness of God feels more real to me than any description we might construct.

Whenever someone begins a sentence with “God is…” and proceeds to define the Divine with certainty, I know I am hearing only a whisper of their experience.

Not a definition of Mystery.

Learning to Rest in Mystery

Is Spirit a who?
Is Love a who?

I honestly do not know.

And as I grow older, I find myself more and more content to live with Mystery.

I no longer feel the need to solve these questions.

I do not need to know who “did it,” or how, or why.

I only need to lean into a holy space—often in silence—and rest my head on a pillow of Mystery.

Unknown.
Unknowable.

Not to understand it…only to trust that it holds.

Unknown.
Unknowable.

And strangely enough…

That feels very much like prayer.

Where do you feel closest to the Holy—words, silence, music, nature, or something else entirely?

You might want to write a few lines about that today. Sometimes the beginning of prayer is simply noticing where the Mystery already meets us.