Prayer That Begins in Silence

What No One Taught Me about Prayer

"When two or three are gathered... someone always has to talk."

That was me.
Early in my journey with the contemplative Quaker community that prizes communal silence, I found myself often glancing at my watch.
How long is this silence going to last?
I’d shift in my seat, willing someone to speak—wondering if I should break the silence.

I was deeply uncomfortable.
Because I hadn’t yet learned that silence isn’t the absence of prayer—it’s the space in which prayer begins.

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I Wasn’t Taught to Pray

Like many of you, I wasn’t really taught how to pray.

What I absorbed from the church culture around me was this:
Prayer = Words. Talking.

It was verbal. It was cognitive. Sometimes reverent. But words—and expected.

It had a shape and a form. It could be structured and turned into a template.

And in many ways, that served me. But it also subtly shaped my belief that if I wasn’t speaking, I wasn’t praying.

Then I encountered the quiet.
And the quiet taught me everything.

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Why Silence Felt So Foreign

It wasn’t just that I was uncomfortable—it was that no one had modeled this kind of prayer for me.

Silence felt awkward, unproductive, even empty.
It felt like a pause waiting to be filled, not a presence waiting to be noticed.

But over time, I began to understand:

That realization changed my prayer life forever.

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This excerpt offers the first steps into stillness.

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