Heart unfurled and lifted for a moment

If I were to write a 'How To' guide: thoughts on creating space for prayer

Hi, I’m Debbie, a spiritual director, writer, host and mother based in Glasgow. I offer stories, ponderings and gentle invitations to share a moment with your soul. Join me today for thoughts on creating space for prayer, and information about some lovely events coming up.

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Photo by Nicholas Ng on Unsplash

How To: Create Space for Prayer

Start by lowering your expectations. This does not need to be an uninterrupted hour of silence, of study, of straining to understand and hear. It does not need to be at 6am. You do not need to have the perfect material, the in-depth training, or the correct theology. All that you need is your presence.

Your presence, your full presence. What pulls you away from this moment? What tugs at your thoughts? What prevents your pause in the first place?

I'm too busy, there's so much to do, what if I don't hear or feel or sense anything?

It's easier to just not try.

All you have to do is come as you are.

Even just for a moment.

How would it be to be honest with God, just for a moment?

"Here I am." I'm tired. I'm barely holding distractions at bay, I'm not sure there's any point to this.

I hear the quiet accusations that this can't possibly be enough.

A moment of honesty with God is a moment claimed. Heart unfurled and lifted, offered, perhaps even unspoken. A moment of connection.

I have wrestled with 'prayer'; my definition has shifted and changed. I stumbled my way into new practices long before allowing myself to believe that they ‘counted’. But who is counting? Who do I need to account to? We can't measure connection, it flows by and through us as we cup our hands to sip it briefly and trustingly.

Photo by Geetanjal Khanna on Unsplash

I remember eating homemade soup and thickly buttered bread at the kitchen table of a mentor. I tried, once again, to wrap words around my doubts and wrestles. She listened thoughtfully before responding 'but this, too, is prayer'. She acknowledged my wordless cries, she could see the threads of connection I threw out and caught, when all I could see was a tangle. I accepted then what I had already known, that prayer is far deeper and broader than the words we speak to God. It is every turning of my heart towards the divine. In wonder, in pain, in frustration, in doubt.

Sure, a physical space can help, a rhythm can help, regular practices and rituals can help. For a season. But it’s not a failure when they no longer work. They serve as gentle prompts, cleared paths, muscle memory. Of course there are ways we can create a space for prayer. But what if the invitation is to notice our existing heart leanings into prayer? Let’s notice the moments and ways we already turn towards the Divine.

Let’s cup our hands around those moments and trust that this, too, is prayer.

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What are the unlikely moments, rhythms or rituals which create moments of connection for you?

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Upcoming Soul Spaces

Well, I have a couple of lovely opportunities coming up.

Firstly on 27th April I will be hosting a Spring Soul Session, in person in Glasgow in the afternoon and online on Zoom in the evening.

This will be the usual Soul Session set up: we’ll have some time together to share thoughts, questions and intentions. Then we’ll have time alone to journal or draw or create and process. I’ll have writing and creative prompts on offer but you are welcome to bring your own life prompts to sit with too. We’ll have another circle sharing time at the end, where we deepen our individual experiences as we notice connections with one another, but there is no pressure to share. You are welcome along whatever your faith or beliefs.

The Spring Soul Session will be themed around our roots: the rhythms and relationships which ground us in our lives.

In Between: A Retreat on Iona

Registration for our Iona Retreat will close at the end of March, we have a delightful group of women already gathered but we still have space if you’d like to come along. We’ll go from May 1st to May 5th, and it will be a co-created, spacious time to gently notice our lives and our faith. There will be laughter, quiet, good food, togetherness, sea swims, creativity, rich conversation: I can’t wait.

The Living Room in The Green Shed on Iona

For those of you who are new to my work, here’s an introduction to me, and ways to work with me:

Hello, I'm so glad you're here!

Ways to Work with Me

And here you’ll find out what I offer on this Substack.

Thanks for being here, and may you notice and hold moments of Sacred connection in your life today.

With love,

Debbie

P.S.

One of the benefits of being a Spiritual Director is meeting wonderful people doing beautiful work. I know we’re nearly two weeks into Lent, but I am loving the two rich offerings that I’ve been exploring, and you could still join in and maybe even catch up (but no pressure!)

Jenny Walley is offering a 7 week practice Dens: A Lenten Experience. Each week has a different theme (last week was Beloved and this week is Wrestling) and features poetry, scripture, art, embodied practices and reflections, all accessed online. It is playful and so thoughtfully compiled, Jenny hosts us tenderly.

Jen Goodyer is offering daily emails travelling through Frederick Buechner’s ‘The Remarkable Ordinary’. Each lovely post has a couple of quotes and some thoughtful questions.

“I am haunted now as I never was before by the sense that we all of us have the mark of God’s thumb upon us. We have the image of God within us. We have a holy place within us that gets messed up in a million ways. But it’s there, and more and more I find myself turning inward toward that and trying to learn how to be quiet. Someone once gave me a book called Creative Silence, and I thought, Oh, that’s just what I need.” - Frederick Buechner.