Without Milestones or Signposts

Once upon a time, I prayed every day and night. I couldn't fall asleep if I hadn't prayed. It's been a long time now, since I said my last prayer. Years, if you must know. The particulars of why I stopped praying are not terribly complex, and in no way unique. How it happened, was indeed gradual-- if not exactly upon a gentle slope, or soft underfoot, or without sudden turns, milestones or signposts. It's strange, being spiritually bereft, when you have all your days before, known the Spirit intimately. It's stranger still, at least to me, that the times I have felt the most spiritually disconnected and isolated, have been those during which I expected to feel exactly the opposite.

For quite some time, I have been thinking of how to begin again. It feels like it's been too long since the last prayer for me to even try to begin again. It's as if somehow God-Universe-Higher-Self isn't accessible to me. I used to be so spiritually connected to my Father in Heaven, but things happened to change that, and slowly, God and I moved further apart, until there was no gravitational pull left between us at all. At least, none that I could, or can feel. I now reside in a place just between "spiritual wasteland" and "hopeful oasis."  And it is there, that I wander back and forth, occasionally crossing one border or another...floating between grief and gratitude.

I feel a bit like the kid who leaves home a little too early, and stays gone way too long; I want to go home, but I don't know how. Because it has been too long, hasn't it? Things have changed and I don't know if the folks would take me back. I'm probably an enormous disappointment. I am still an unruly, handful-- grown-up or not.  Who would blame anyone for slamming the door in my face? Or maybe, I never really had a home to leave or come back to in the first place. I don't know. I wish I did.

I need to find a way back to the hopeful oasis. Because I suspect that the oasis is merely the first step in finding my way back to Myself.  And I desperately need to get back to Me. But, to get there...maybe prayer could help me find my way back to the oasis again? If I can bring myself to do it. To pray. Somewhere, buried far beneath this pain and grief, it feels like that might be right.