Planet Soul
How Should You Talk to God?
Notes from a neophyte spiritualist
I shall have to train my senses, make them at once stronger and more delicate, at one moment tough, at another fragile; in a word, more lucid. I shall hear with my sense of sight and with my skin; I shall cover myself with eyes. Everything, even judgment, will be touch and hearing. Everything must be felt. I shall also think with my eyes and my hands: Everything must think. —Octavio Paz, “From Criticism to Offering”
Last year, I began praying for the first time in almost two decades. I don’t remember the precise reason I started back up, but I sure as hell remember why I’d given up prayer many years ago. It was the night of December 17, a week before Christmas Eve. I was 13 years old, and I’d just been told, by my mother, that my father had been found dead in his apartment. I remember thinking God, I don’t really feel like talking to You tonight, and indeed, I ended up keeping that line of communication shut off for many years.
I was bereaved, but I had a lot of other feelings I couldn’t quite identify, and I had an angry child’s understanding of divinity. Like many people, I imagined humankind’s relationship with God to be a quid pro quo kind of deal: I behave and think like a good Christian, and in return, good things happen to me. Among…
