I heard these words at a meeting recently, and they moved me in a particular way. As I thought about making my life an offering and a prayer, I felt a deep sense of the active co-creation inherent in these words. Rather than being a passive recipient of what life brings my way, I have a choice about how I want to create meaning around that experience, and how I want to bring it into my spiritual practice. I also thought about how we each contribute to the quality of life that goes on around us. If we’re able to move through a stressful situation with some degree of equanimity, others who may also be involved won’t have to add our distress to their experience.

My experience got me to thinking that no matter where we are in our life process – dealing with childhood hurts, moving ahead with a career change, deepening spiritual practice – the invitation to live consciously is constantly present. The meaning we put on our experience offers itself to us in every moment. The particular maps we use to understand the meaning of what life brings our way provides the foundation for how we understand our place within a larger context – or not. Over the years, I’ve noticed that people who are able to place some kind of meaning on what happens to them tend to move through their lives with less stress and less regret. This seems to have to do with being able to sense that there is meaning in our experience, however we might frame that for ourselves – that we aren’t caught up in random events with no connection to us.

Some of us feel connected to a larger spiritual whole. Others of us have particular religious beliefs that make sense of what goes on in our world. Still others of us find our sense of meaning in our connection to a larger context, to our place as part of an ecological/biological system.

And so, for this week’s experiment, I invite you to explore what it means to you to “make of your life an offering, make of your life a prayer.” Allow your imagination and deep sense of the world as you understand it guide your experience and notice how it is to be aware that mindful presence is a constant invitation. Explore the sense of being an active participant in what comes your way, rather than a passive recipient, even if the only power you have in any given moment is to allow that moment to become meaningful to you.

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