For a few months, my prayer scroll hung on the wall of my studio. It was really just a tattered piece of cloth rolled up and tied with hemp twine. The cloth was attached, on one end, to a piece of tree limb that had fallen off our birch tree, and the scroll hung on a pushpin driven into the wall. My prayer ritual was to take the scroll down from the wall, lay it on the floor, and inscribe my prayer with a pen or a brush.

My prayers were almost anything: a name, a poem that came to me, tiny drawings—but always, the contents of my heart. In my exploration with this prayer scroll, I found that sometimes my heart was full, but I did not know what to write. Sometimes I sat hunched over the cloth, pen in my hand, hesitating. Sometimes I left a blank space, trusting God to know what filled the gaps.

Even before the scroll, I had explored an array of prayer forms: e-mail prayer circles, written journals, prayers in other languages.…For a while, I was convinced that it was a tangible, see-able place of prayer for which I longed. Like a traveler who cannot truly experience a place without smelling the air and standing beneath that particular sky to feel the soil firmly underfoot, I was in search of a sacred place. I wanted a little chapel, like the one I found years ago in a village outside of Geneva. There was something about that chapel—it was dusty, silent, and filled with graven images, but also the presence of God. But it wasn’t just the place.

Victor Hugo said, "Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees." More than place, I think that little chapel symbolizes for me a moment when I hushed the frantic hum of thoughts in my head and found my soul on its knees. It requires a constant revising and searching to bring my soul to its knees, to know that my prayer is sincere. It means creating a community of two through solitude. It means honoring the beauty of words—but sometimes also the absence of words.

Once my husband said, "Sometimes squeezing your hand is a kind of prayer."

"What kind of prayer?" I asked.

"A great love between us. A family bond kind of thing," he said.

My heart fluttered. Then I thought, that’s exactly it. That’s exactly the intention of my heart when I pray. With every exploration of prayer, I am searching for those rare astonishing moments when it is as though God and I are squeezing hands. Without an audible word saying, yes, I’m still here. All is well between us. It is as magical yet true as a shooting star or the moment love becomes real.

Recently, I took down my prayer scroll; it, too, had become a monotonous routine. So here I am at another fork in the road, with an unclear destination before me. I’ll be honest: there are days when I forget to pray and many during which I do not pray enough, but in my heart there is always the desire to pray. I know I will always be searching for God. I hope someday to find him, to be able to say of my prayer journey, "I have walked in his presence and seen his face, sat beside him and know he is true."

But let’s say that it never happens, that he is always just around the bend in the road, that I am left chasing after the shadow of his existence. What then? I think it’s really the journey that matters most. For me, it will be worth it just for those rare moments when my soul is on its knees, when I reach hopefully for God’s hand and I can feel the squeeze of his hand.

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