About two weeks ago I decided to stop praying. For reals. I reached the point in my life where most of my prayers had turned into narcissistic lamentations about the complexity of life and of myself. And one gets terribly tired of thinking about and talking about oneself all the time. So I stopped. It was a rather relieving experience, but what more - I think God was hugely relieved too.

I didn't stop having prayer time though. I know better than this by now - you don't stop with most important spiritual practices without a danger of getting into some serious trouble. As Lauren Winner puts it in one of her books about Jewish and Christian spirituality, "The essence of the thing is doing, an action. Your faith may come and go, but your practice ought not waver. Indeed, Judaism suggests that the repeating of the practice is the best way to ensure that a doubter's faith will return." I believe she speaks truth here, not only for Jews but for Christians as well. There are times for doubting and times for silence, times when the best you can do is to shout at God (or swear, as my own darkest experiences have shown) but there are some practices that should not end. So this is what I did - I limited myself to praying Psalms. I would read Psalm 4 every night and Psalm 5 every morning (because as Eugene Peterson suggests, they are essentially an evening prayer and a morning prayer). That's all. I would not add anything to the words of the psalmist, or if I was tempted, I would cut myself off. Like I said, it was a liberating experience.

Two other things happened roughly the same time I stopped praying. I think in some mysterious way they were very much connected to this prayer fast of mine. First, I stumbled upon a book. It's quite a story in itself how I got this book but I'm not interested in telling it here - one day I just held Frederick Buechner's sermon collection Secrets in the Dark in my hands and that was that. It has turned out to be one of the most beautiful Christian books (or any books, for that matter) I have ever read in my life. These sermons are so good, so real and so hurtful I could not read more than one or two at the time, sometimes I would have to stop right in the middle of a sermon and give myself a whole day to take it in. Quite often I would well up or literally weep while reading. After two weeks I'm still not done with the book, and in a way these sermons have turned into my prayers. And I can say this - they are healing prayers.

The other thing I noticed had to do with music. For some weeks now I have been listening to Arvo Pärt's brilliant choral piece Te Deum. Almost obsessively. Hardly an evening passes when I don't listen to it. Once. Or twice. Or maybe three times... Never mind. It is heavenly music (quite literally, when women sing Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus in the very end of that piece I always think that's what heaven is going sound like). And I think this is the other way I've learned to pray now. Through music.

It's almost time for Te Deum and Psalm 4 now. It has imperceptibly turned into the best part of my day. :)