3 Prayers for Spiritual People Who Don’t Like to Pray

The Prayers You didn’t Learn in Sunday School.

For some in the spiritual-but-not-religious community, prayer is a step too far. Isn’t that something you do in church? But I’m here to say there are other forms of prayer that have nothing to do with the rote Hail Marys and Our Fathers you may have learned in Catechism or Sunday school.

In these prayers, you aren’t repeating memorized lines or praying for a specific outcome. You’re connecting one-on-one with God or whatever you want to call the glue that holds the Universe together. These prayers originate not so much in the head, but in the heart. In two instances, don’t include words. The goal is simply to find comfort or guidance from a source that’s greater than yourself.

Here are three “prayers” that recently caught my eye and whispered to my soul.

Prayer #1: Begin with Gratitude

In his most recent book Poems & Prayers, actor and author Matthew McConaughey offers an extended riff on prayer and its meaning in his life. It goes on for several pages and meanders like a backwoods Texas river, but he says a few things that caused me to stop and think. For starters, check out his definition of prayer:

Prayer is paying attention. In a world that constantly consumes our thoughts but distracts us from tending to our spirit, prayer gives our soul a chance to catch up with our busy minds.

Giving our souls a chance to catch up with our minds. In our hectic worlds, where we too often get caught up in our daily chores and to-do lists, it’s a beautiful thought isn’t it? McConaughey then explains his own approach to prayer:

 I begin my prayers with gratitude. I smile upon my blessings.

I try to humble myself with my desires.

I remember that in God’s economy, service serves me.

I pray for the guidance to do all that I can as a husband and father for the mental, physical, and spiritual health of my family.

McConaughey begins his prayer with gratitude which tracks with what the late sage John Templeton once said, “Being thankful results in more to be thankful for.” This is followed by McConaughey’s desire to “humble myself with my desires,” acknowledging that while he has wants, he needs to stay grounded and realize he isn’t the one in total control. It’s his way of saying: I want these things, but I’m not bigger than the process.

 Prayer #2: Grace from God

The philosopher James Carse once wrote that the language of God is silence. To his thinking, “it is not a silence into which God has disappeared, but a silence in which God is remarkably present.” When you silently move toward God from your heart, God responds. I was reminded of Carse when I read this passage in Braving the Thin Places by Julianne Stanz:

For a long time, I thought that praying was something to do. But the heart of prayer is simply being and resting in God. Prayer creates a space for grace in your life. Prayer allows us to slow down and set aside all those distractions that the world is throwing at us. Grace is an unmerited gift or favor from God. We do not have to earn this gift. God gives us his graces freely.

What is the grace Stanz talks about? A recent post by the artist and poet Ally Markotich explains it this way: “Grace receives me as I am—without the goodness of my deeds.”  Unconditional love. She continues: “I see grace as a radiant spark of divinity that permeates the natural world. A spark that invites you and I to witness and partner with it.”

 Prayer #3: A Constant Communion

In a couple of passages from his classic book Falling Upward, Richard Rohr breaks prayer down to its simplest elements. In the first, he talks of an ancient prayer practice that involves no words. While the practice may be centuries old, it is a form of prayer we all can engage in today and involves a direct connection to God:

 A number of saints spoke of prayer itself as simply receiving the ever-benevolent gaze of God, returning it in kind, mutually gazing, and finally recognizing that it is one single gaze received and bounced back.

When it comes to prayer, Rohr advises us to ease up on our notions that there is a right way to do it, writing: “In the beginning, you tend to think that God really cares about your exact posture, the exact day of the week for public prayer, the authorship and wordings of your prayers.” Rohr goes a step further and encourages us to make life itself a type of prayer:

Once your life has become a constant communion (with God), you know all the techniques, formulas, sacraments and practices, were just a dress rehearsal for the real thing—life itself—which can actually become a constant intentional prayer.

While not calling him out by name, Rohr is alluding to the prayer practices of Brother Lawrence who lived in the 1600s. A major influence on Pope Leo, for Brother Lawrence, the loving presence of God iss everywhere. Each action an acknowledgement of the Divine. Lawrence recommended we “relate to God in a simple way, silently communing with Him. All that is needed to achieve a union with God is love.”

 You might also enjoy my story on the short, quirky prayers of Minister Donna Schaper, “for people who maybe believe.”