The Practice and the Person

by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM   June 22, 2025

Perhaps it’s been a few years (or many) since we learned to pray. We might have been initiated into that practice by our parents or guardians, kneeling next to us at a bedside, offering us a sample of what might be spoken aloud to the Holy One before sleep, then encouraging us to “fill in the blanks” ourselves. We might have learned the practice of giving thanks for our food as we gathered around a table for supper. Perhaps an adult modeled for us the practice of pausing and entering into silent wonder before a brilliant sunset, an unfolding rose, a deer stopped in its tracks nearby. No words necessary. Wonder. And stillness.

As adults, we sometimes have to get creative in finding time and space to be silent and pray. I once had a harried mother with two toddlers at home tell me her plan: she established with her little ones that when she burrowed into her closet and closed the door, she was talking to God and couldn’t be interrupted—except for an emergency. It worked, she said, mostly.

I suspect that for many of us, our manner of praying has evolved over the years as our image of the Holy has also expanded. Often when I meet seasoned pray-ers through my retreat ministry, there is conversation about prayer, not so much the how-to of early days but more around questions about where persons find themselves in their life of prayer: Am I doing this prayer thing right? Should I be praying more often, praying longer, praying differently…? Or, how do I know if God is pleased with the way I pray? Or, I worry that my life is so full of responsibilities that I can’t seem to find time to pray. Or, I wonder if my prayer is making any difference.

But usually as I listen to people trying to shake out in words their practice of prayer or what prayer means for them, I find myself saying with a bit of holy envy to God, “I want that!” Often I have to hold myself back from bowing down in awe. I sometimes meet people who have been deprived of affirmation or encouragement or who worry about prayer and who have no idea what I see right in front of me: how brightly the astonishing radiance of their own goodness shines through, how loudly their desire for the Holy speaks.

I’ve come to believe that the very desire to pray is itself a prayer, a longing, a yearning to connect to a higher power, a Spirit larger than oneself. Prayer, I believe, is less about the words we say and more about a deepening relationship with the divine. Just as in human friendships we need to give time to be with the other in order to deepen connection and understanding, so in our life of prayer we need to give some time over to the Holy One each day in order to foster an intimate relationship. One of the ways I pray comes from a delightful practice a spiritual guide shared with me years ago. She mentioned that when she woke up in the morning, her first prayer took the form of a question to God: “What mischief can you and I get in together today?”

I’d like to write more about prayer, and I will another time. But for now, wherever you are and whatever time of day it might be, I invite you to take a moment to pause and ask the Holy One that same open-ended question: What mischief can you and I get in together today? I invite you to notice where that takes you.

Takeaway

Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Imagine:
What might it mean for you to get into mischief with the Holy One?
Chat with God about that.
Then sit back and simply listen.
Invite the Holy One to accompany you through the rest of this day.

Featured Images:   Shalom Ejiofor, Unsplash;  Guillaume de Germain, Unsplash

NOTE:
June 22 – 29
Please hold in your prayer all who will be part of a directed retreat at Mercy by the Sea in Madison, CT during this time. I’ll be one of the guest directors for this retreat. Thank you.

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