052: Expanding the Way We Pray, Part 1

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!