What Is Spirituality

How Can Language Speak of the Infinite?

I know the word 'prayer' brings religion to mind for most people. I don't think 'secular prayer' is a common term, but for now, that's what I will use. I say this because this writing isn't pointing toward any particular religion.

I did grow up in a religious family, but prayer to me now is, at its core, an act of communication, intention, commitment, and connection to the unseen. It is how I attempt to touch, however briefly, the unseen forces, life energy, or whatever powers may exist. It's my daily check-in with the higher intelligence around me.

Secular prayer can be structured, in daily repetitious words such as affirmations, or spontaneous dialogue usually directed toward the nonphysical.

Today we frequently hear words such as mindfulness, intention setting, and reflection, but for me I finally decided the word "prayer" could include all of those - prayer reminds me of my intentions and goals. It gives me a moment to commit, out loud, to becoming a better person. It reminds me to be grateful for what I do have. And when I find myself caught in tough times, which sometimes last a good while, it helps keep despair from taking over.

And I will mention, if I pray when surrounded by nature, I feel an undeniable power and strong life force that surges out of nature and seems to go right through me, connecting me, somehow, to the grounded roots below and the tallest leaves above.

All of this is simply to say that I feel a need to connect with the infinite and that part of myself which is one with the invisible. The natural part of myself that is connected to all life, which is so vast that it requires faith in the unseen to even approach the subject at all.

And what do I know about the unseen? Well so far, all I can honestly say about the spiritual part of myself is that I experience it, I feel it, and it seems to run through every part of my life. I think if one is frequently creative, there is an unspeakable flow that is felt in an undeniable way.

But we cannot fully define that which exists beyond physical form, which is to say, beyond definition. It is just the calm acceptance that while my body knows time through its changes, the life force within me is indestructible. So I reach towards the infinite with my mind. I use words like God, Mother Earth, the universe, the Spirit, the Holy Trinity, or whatever language feels meaningful in the moment, because I know I must accept the contradiction of it all.

Language is the art of defining reality as we understand it. To use language at all is to apply definitions to what is...to define our abstractions as best we can. Yet to communicate with that which lies beyond definition, I still need thoughts, and those thoughts reveal and organize themselves through language.

I am fascinated by how humans seem to inhabit two worlds simultaneously: the visible world of form, and the invisible world of thought, meaning, memory, love, purpose, mathematics, imagination, and spirit. We cannot hold these things in our hands, yet they shape nearly every aspect of our lives.

And I am okay with being an embodiment of contradiction, with accepting that I carry life even as I wait for death, and with seeking to know that which is ultimately undefinable.

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