This feels like a silly question to explore. It seems like, if one realizes one wants to begin a prayer practice, it would be obvious to know how to go about it.

It turns out, if that one is me, that it’s not so obvious at all. I do not have a faith tradition to teach me, nor am I looking for one. It’s not new to me that I seek spiritual connection. I’ve had several transcendent moments in my life that were but a moment, and they still nourish me decades later. Spirituality is important to me.

It has only just occurred to me, at age 51, though, that a good way to cultivate that connection in my daily life would be through prayer. I’ve dabbled with meditation, but it doesn’t fulfill what I’m looking for. At least the way I’ve practiced it, it lacks the element of spiritual intent, of relationship with something greater than myself. I’ve used it more as a means of paying attention to my attention rather than, say, expressing gratitude for this purring kitty on my lap or appreciating the wind in the trees, or making space in any way to acknowledge the greatness of the world and universe around me, and the gift of existing in it.

Having had this revelation this morning that I want to begin a prayer practice, and I’m going to begin today!, I then got down to the nuts and bolts of it, of what that actually means, and how to go about it. Prayer is often presented as an appeal: a request for something. I don’t think that’s all prayer is, though. It can also be gratitude. It can be appreciation. It can be an attempt at oneness.

What I want from prayer is to build a relationship with the guiding forces that are larger than me, a “higher power” in the parlance of addiction recovery, and to recognize that higher power and appreciate it and be in communion with it.

My first thought always, of course, is to start a journal. A prayer journal. And to read books about prayer. If you are laughing, it’s okay. I’m laughing, too. It seems so ridiculous to feel like I have to learn how to pray. Just do it, already!

I did just do it before sitting down to write this, but it felt super awkward. My first obstacle was, how do I address the divine? If this is a conversation, who or what am I having a conversation with? God is too patriarchal, Goddess feels better but still anthropomorphizes the force, and “dear vast force of the universe” feels cheesy and hard to build a relationship with.

Ultimately I ended up doing some gratitude journaling, and it was okay, but not quite there. I think my first step is going to need to be as simple as carving out time each day to practice. Everything new feels weird at first.