Sunday Reflections: Everybody needs a place to play in, and pray in

Last February, on a winding, 10-day trip through Florida that began in Tallahassee and took me to Orlando, Gainesville, Deland and then up to Atlanta before flying back to Los Angeles, I had the pleasure of doing a story on Thayer Hall.

Hall’s an outside hitter at Florida, 6-foot-3, a tremendous athlete and unfailingly humble. She’s well-spoken and also deeply Christian – not in the proselytizing, Bible-thumping kind of way, but the kind of faith that’s so deeply woven into her life’s fabric that it was couched in many of her answers.

One, in particular, stood out: “I find that when things start going the way I don’t want them to go,” she said, “is when I start trying to do things myself. And so it’s just God’s way of saying ‘Nope, now you gotta sit out. Take a step back, regroup.’”

It’s always difficult to determine what, exactly, people mean when they say that they begin doing things themselves and leaving God on the sidelines, so to speak. I’ve personally never had a Burning Bush Moment, or anything that resembles a clear-cut conversation with God. Everybody has their own channel of communication. Some of my friends say they can hear his voice, clear as day, when they pray. Others see Him in signs, random coincidences they find to be not coincidental. Others journal, and find that their answers come to them as their pen flows.

My spiritual routines are two: In the mornings, I’ll read the Bible — or something of spiritual influence — and before I dive into whatever book I’m reading, I’ll journal. Before practice, I’ll jog down to the shore and send up a quick prayer for the day. Those are my little sanctuaries, my time with God.

In 2020, of course, that routine was thrown off. There wasn’t much beach volleyball to be played, and I kind of forgot about my pre-practice prayer routine.

I was, essentially, as Thayer said, trying to do things myself.

Now, my life didn’t fall apart in 2020. But it has been enlightening to see just how much better life is when you carve out your own little time to pray.

It was John Muir, maybe the man I’d most like to meet someday, who said: “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.”

I am finding that to be increasingly true. I found my places I love to pray, the places I feel closest to God. Primarily, this is the ocean, but the more we went backpacking and camping, the more I felt something similar virtually anywhere in nature: next to a rushing creek, a waterfall, deep in a lush forest.

As restrictions have eased and we’ve returned to practicing full-time, I’ve reinstated my usual pre-practice prayer, and many things have simply fallen into place – just like that. Yes, there could be many reasons for this. When we pray, or meditate, or journal, we’re telling our minds exactly what we want to do or have happen that day or week or month or whatever. If we pray to be kinder, more patient – with ourselves and others – we’re more likely to be exactly that, whether we believe God is sprinkling down Patience Dust or not. Maybe that’s half the benefit of prayer: It’s our way of making ourselves take action in a faith-based manner, something on which my favorite book in the Bible, James, harps extensively.

But there are some things that I don’t find to be coincidental. The more I’ve reintroduced my regular prayer time, the more things simply seem to fall in place — the perfect apartment opening up, new writing contracts, the right people appearing in my life at the right time — with seemingly little effort, other than acknowledging the Big Man Upstairs in the mornings.

2020 was a big step back for most of the world, though maybe it was the one many of us needed. We stepped back, regrouped.

So we don’t have to try to go forward alone.