Learning to Pray (When You’re Not Sure Who You’re Talking To)
After a lifetime of spiritual travel, I’m learning how to sit still—and speak to God (the Universe, Spirit, Higher Power?) in my own voice.
For years I thought I had to go far from home to find God.
I flew across the world. I prayed at the foot of Arunachala in South India. I sat in the caves where Ramana Maharshi once meditated, my legs going numb, the air heavy with dust and silence. I bowed in full pranam at Neem Karoli Baba’s temple in the Himalayan foothills, the scent of sandalwood and woodsmoke in the air, bells ringing in the trees.
Some of you know this part of my story. You’ve read about it in my book Into the Soul of the World, or followed pieces of it on social media. I walked across Israel
and Palestine in the footsteps of Jesus. I re-baptized myself in the River Jordan, and, in Jerusalem, I pressed my palm into the bark of olive trees older than the soil itself. I studied Jesus’ teachings—the way he lived with openhearted clarity and courage. In India, I watched the bodies burn on the banks of the Ganges and met a hundred-year-old yogi in a cave near Kainchi. He looked at me with eyes like still, deep water. I learned to chant in Sanskrit. I sat with gurus, teachers, and monks. I experienced moments of ecstasy, surrender, and awe.
These were real experiences. I wouldn’t trade them. They changed me. They fed my soul.
They also shaped a belief that the sacred lived far away. That I had to earn my way into closeness. That I needed to be in a temple, or in a foreign land, or in some heightened state of consciousness to feel a connection with God.
Back home, I built altars. Lit incense. Sat cross-legged. I spoke words that didn’t always feel like mine. I wanted to pray, but, truthfully, I didn’t know how. I didn’t know who I was talking to. I didn’t know how to begin. I carried the sense that I needed to be better, more surrendered. That I wasn’t ready to be heard.
I practiced meditation. Watched my thoughts. Studied the Gita, the Sutras, the Christian mystics. I learned how to be still. But I didn’t know how to bring my flawed, longing, distracted self into a living relationship with God or Spirit or the Universe.
This spring, I listened to an old “On Being Podcast” interview with Roberta Bondi, then read two of her books—To Pray and to Love and In Ordinary Time. Her voice felt like a key I’d been looking for. Quiet. Earthy. Honest. She had spent much of her life studying the desert mothers and fathers—early Christian mystics who left cities and crowds and went into the wilderness, not because they were holy, but because they were hungry for something real.
Bondi writes that prayer doesn’t require special words or sacred settings. You can pray while brushing your teeth, washing dishes, walking the dog. Even reading a novel. She encourages letting go of the grand idea that you’re doing something important. Prayer, she says, is simply showing up as you are. God is already there.
“God does not wait until we are good to love us,” she writes. “God loves us now, just as we are.”
She also writes that prayer can feel like a struggle. Like Jacob wrestling the angel in the night. You may not hear anything. You may not feel anything. The silene might last a month, a year, longer. The longing itself becomes the prayer. Staying near it is the thread that connects you to what matters.
I’ve started praying in my own voice. I ask to be released from fear. From
resentment. From the delusions that keep me stuck. I ask for gentleness. For strength. For the softness to stay open. Sometimes I just sit and breathe and say, I’m here.
I’ve been spending time with somebody new. We’re enjoying the dance of getting to know each other.. We’re learning how we move. What helps us feel seen. What builds trust. How we show up in conflict. How we come back. It’s sweet. Tender. Vulnerable in ways I didn’t expect. I’ve been paying attention to all of it. Trying to let it change me instead of being in control.
I’ve been trying to bring prayer into that space too. Into the moments where I feel vulnerable. Into touch, even sex. Into late-night meals and slow mornings. Into the ordinary holiness of sitting in the garden with her, coffee mugs in hand.
The other morning, that’s exactly where we were. The light filtered through the cottonwood leaves. Her dog pressed against my shin. She placed her hand on mine. This, too, was prayer.
In that stillness, I swear I felt a stirring in my solar plexus. The doubts I’ve carried—about God, about worthiness, about whether any of this is spirituality stuff is real—grew quieter.
I continue to live with wonder. And now I pray. And I’m returning. That’s enough.
P.S. If you’re ready to explore your story more deeply, I’m teaching a one-day memoir writing workshop on August 12. It’s three hours on Zoom, followed by a one-hour follow-up session a week later to help you integrate and continue the work. The class is called:
One Powerful Session. One Inspired Follow-Up. A Lifetime of Writing Tools.
We’ll explore memory, meaning, soul, and voice—and begin shaping the raw material of your life into story.
You can read more and sign up here:
https://bradwetzler.com/one-powerful-session-one-inspired-follow-up-a-lifetime-of-writing-tools/
I’d love to write alongside you.
If you haven’t bought my memoir, Into the Soul of the World: My Journey to Healing, yet, I hope you will.
Here’s what author Hampton Sides wrote about it:
“Brad Wetzler has led the very definition of an adventurous life, but in Into the Soul of the World, he gives an unflinching account of his interior adventures. Wetzler’s soulful quest, by turns anguished and transcendent, will resonate with readers around the world who struggle to find purpose and a sense of the holy in the ambient jitter of the digital age.”