Apr 8, 2020
The practice of prayer is fundamental in most of the world's
faith traditions. And yet within most of these faiths, one finds
that there are many forms this practice can take. Mormonism, still
less than 200 years old, hasn't yet developed names and clear ways
of referencing types of prayers and stances before God that are
contained in its scriptures and other texts that have emerged from
it. We believe that is yet to come. What has happened instead is
that many Latter-day Saints who are answering the call of their
deepest longings to connect with the Divine--God but also within
themselves--are doing so with the aid of prayer forms and
descriptions that have emerged in other traditions. None of these
forms conflict with Mormonism's sense of God and ourselves as, at
the core, divine, uncreated, capable of enlargement, nor with the
fundamental qualities of both God and our deep selves such as being
fully loving, compassionate, patient, trusting, recognizing the
divine in everything/everyone, and being ever in the process of
expanding to include in relationship more.
In this episode, Latter-day Faith host Dan
Wotherspoon invited three friends who have experienced
wonderful things through prayer practices drawn from elsewhere. It
features JoDee Baird, Julie
Keanaaina, and Marianne Pond sharing,
along with Dan, their journeys with prayer, the ways their
practices have expanded, and the spiritual benefits and widened
experiences that have resulted. Part 1 also approaches one form of
prayer called "Centering Prayer" and begins to talk about it in
broad terms and about its intentions but closes right before
actually teaching it. Its teaching along with another type of
praying that each has found powerful come in Part 2, which will be
available the following day.
Listen in! Be with people virtually who have explored and expanded
their prayer lives and forms and who convey through words and tone
and emotion something ultimately ineffable and only able to be
truly understood through our own personal experiences. Welcome!