WORSHIP For some people, praying involves their whole bodies

The spirit moves bodies in different ways.
SCRIPPS HOWARD
Hands crossed at the wrists over the heart. Body kneeling with back straight and a bowed head. Arms stretched out with hands uplifted to the sky.
These are postures and gestures of prayer, and according to some theologians and ministers, they are just as important as the words or the moments of silence.
"Certainly, we can pray just thinking," says Christina Kitts, director of evangelization at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Raleigh, N.C. But she was able to find more meaning when she merged her body with her words.
"When I explored postures and gestures consistent with my spirit, I was expressing my prayer more fully."
Teresa Berger, associate professor of ecumenical theology at Duke University's Divinity School, says mouthing the words is only one aspect of prayer. "Maybe not the most important one. To focus on the verbal as the primary mode or as an exclusive way of prayer would be a shortcut."
"The body is always involved in prayer," she says.
Whether we kneel, sit, stand or lie in bed, the body is part of one's expression of prayer.
One woman's evolution
Jeanette Stokes, executive director for the Durham, N.C.-based Resource Center for Women and Ministry in the South, likes to think about her evolution in praying by reflecting on how she learned to pray as a child, imitating her grandmother.
"She was a very devout Presbyterian. She would get up very early in the morning, read her Bible, fold her hands and pray," Stoke says. "When I went to church, I was taught to do the same thing."
But as Stokes became a woman and a Presbyterian minister, she discovered that wasn't the only way.
Some people can be very present with God, sitting perfectly still. Other people only feel agitated sitting still, she says. They can be more present with God with their hands moving or with their whole bodies moving. Others feel more present with God walking in the woods.
The differences show up in various religious traditions. Episcopalians, Stokes explains, kneel when they pray while members of other denominations may stand. Buddhists meditate by sitting on the floor, cross-legged on a cushion.
At the Resource Center for Women and Ministry, Stokes says she and her colleagues try to encourage people to try out different prayer postures.
Different energies
Stokes has noticed that she gets a different energy from different gestures or postures. "If you sit in a chair, put your palms down on your knees, it feels sort of safe."
But when she turns her hands up, she feels more open and vulnerable. That seems like a more receptive posture to receiving from God, she says.
Kitts believes that different postures and gestures symbolize different emotions.
Kneeling conveys an attitude of adoration or penance. Sitting indicates listening or waiting. Standing conveys action or commitment.
Before she embraced a more active style of prayer, she thought that sometimes the awkwardness of her gestures indicated that she wasn't sure what she was asking God for in prayer.
"I was troubled by something and I wanted to take the concern to prayer. I sat in the usual way. I was troubled with that. I tried to fold my hands but that didn't express what was in my heart. I got so frustrated," she says.
Finally, she gave up and let her hands fall to her side. "When that happened I experienced my inner need to turn the worry over, to surrender by letting the hands go. I didn't go to it purposely. That taught me what the prayer of my heart was."
Now when she prays she asks herself if her body is consistent with her spirit. "Is the whole of my being saying the same thing?"