Embodied Prayer

May 1, (RNS)--The photographs show a disparate bunch: the Muslim with palms raised skyward in daily prayer; the Catholic accepting Eucharist; the Pentecostal "receiving" the Spirit; the Mevlevi dervish caught mid-whirl in a Sufi dance.

But each has embraced a principle author Jon M. Sweeney believes needs resuscitating in modern worship practices: God not only wants your soul, but your body as well.

Embodied prayer is "one of the purer forms of spirituality."

"The involvement of the body in worship has been de-emphasized to the point that the way we practice worship in many congregations is that prayer is supposed to be vocal or mental, in the head," said Sweeney, who included those photographs in his book "Praying With Our Hands: 21 Practices of Embodied Prayer from the World's Spiritual Traditions." The book chucks the notion that the body is a spiritual stumbling block. "Hopefully we can take a small step toward correcting that."

Many believers take that step every day--albeit unwittingly, Sweeney said. When receiving Holy Communion, igniting Sabbath candles, counting rosary beads or bowing their heads to say grace before a meal, believers are unconsciously meshing the physical and spiritual, giving both roles in spiritual practice.

Too often prayer is considered strictly a mental activity, but enthusiasm for physical expression in worship hasn't faded entirely, Sweeney said, pointing to the growing popularity of liturgical dance.

"That's a good example of a setting--at least in Christianity--where the body was not forgotten but was seen as a real vehicle for spiritual meaning," he said.

Embodied prayer even extends to a practice less often associated with worship--begging, Sweeney said.

"Begging is a sort of prayer with the hands--people in a lot of different religious traditions have used begging as part of their religious practices," Sweeney said. "And the way in which we relate to beggars says a lot about our own spirituality."

Embodied prayer is "one of the purer forms of spirituality," said Sweeney, who first stumbled upon the concept while reading a biography of the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. In the book, the monk says one of the greatest lessons he learned during his first year in a monastery was the art of opening and closing doors quietly.

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