learning to pray?

[songbird44]

The other day, I read the blog of an acquaintance who happens to be Catholic. In the course of her spiel about how to live a better life, she talked for a while about how you need to learn to pray, and if you don't know how, you need to find someone who can teach you how to do it

Comments

Re: Learning to pray...

[songbird44]

Thanks for your insightful comment. I agree with you that rituals and/or ceremonies provide a way to transition from "everyday" thinking to a more meditative state so that prayer can happen in the way you describe.

To clarify, what I was trying to say was that it seems to me that those rituals can be made up on the fly or as need dictates. I don't need to memorize certain words or phrases or have special tools for my pre-prayer ritual in order for me to have a meaningful communication with Divinity. (I do need to do *something,* but that something might vary from one time to the next - does that make sense?)

The whole notion that a person must be taught the "correct" way to proceed or the "correct" words or else it doesn't count as real prayer is strange to me. It seems to put artificial barriers in place between a person and his or her inner still, small voice. That's the bit that I don't understand.

Please note that I don't judge anyone else's way of connecting with Divinity. There are just things about it that I don't understand.

Thanks again for your comment!