“Receiving” a Prayer and a Belated Insight

Photo by Holly Mandarich on Unsplash

One of the most interesting experiences I’ve ever had is receiving someone else’s prayer.

If you don’t spend a lot of time in the circles where I like to live, “receiving someone else’s prayer” means that someone sent out a prayer and, roughly 2000 miles and nine countries away, that prayer landed in my head.

I just didn’t yet know that. Because, on my end, all that I thought happened was that I had an idea.

Here’s how it played out: sometime in 2020, Sam and I received money that we didn’t feel right accepting. So we decided to donate it and picked an organization to give it to. I just hadn’t put in our credit card details and hit donate yet.

Then, while out for my daily wiggly walk, I realized that we should donate the money somewhere else.

So the next day, while on my way to a lunch meeting, I sent a message to the person who came to mind. It wasn’t an official charity or anything like that. It was a friend who lived in a different country, one where the Covid situation happened to be particularly brutal.

“Hi,” I said. “Does anyone in your circle need some help with what’s going on right now? Sam and I have some money that we’d like to send if there’s a need for it.”

Almost instantly, my friend responded. “Keely,” the friend said, “Just last night, I spend the entire night in ceremony praying for help and it touches my heart that you felt this prayer. The situation is bad here. We very much need assistance and, on behalf of the community, I gratefully accept.”

So…right about the time when my friend began sending out prayers, an idea landed in my wide-open and relaxed mind (wiggly walks are one of my favorite forms of meditation).

“Oh duh,” I thought. “I shouldn’t be sending this money to xy&z organization. I should reach out to a person I care about and see if their community—which doesn’t seem to have access to funds at the moment—could use it.”

Now, I’m rather spiritual. I believe in forces greater than what meet the eye. Frankly, I believe in magic. Good ol’ juicy delicious magic (which, if you haven’t heard, is likely to be the “mindfulness” of this decade).

Therefore, the story that I tell myself is that: 1) if my friend hadn’t sent out a prayer, I wouldn’t have received it and 2) if I hadn’t been on a wiggly walk, in a meditative state, with a mind relaxed enough for a prayer to drop in, I also wouldn’t have received it.

Both steps were essential.

I’m writing about it today because it took almost three years for me to realize…

If this can happen for my friend, if sending out a prayer can “land” in me.

Then prayers that I send out can also land in others.

Just like prayers YOU send out can land in others.

And prayers that others send out can land in YOU.

Pretty wild, huh?

So, anyway, that’s what’s blowing my mind today.

Wishing magic for you and yours…and sending my hopes that you take action when a prayer you can do something about lands in you,

Keely

P.S. If the word “prayer” doesn’t sit right with you (it didn’t sit right with me for a long time because of religious connotations), feel free to use the definition that a friend in recovery offered me long ago: a prayer = a petition to the Universe.

P.P.S. They also said that prayer = asking and that meditation = listening for a response.