A dancer-choreographer and theologian shares a vision of prayer as an emptying of ourselves one knot at a time, and allowing the breath of God to blow through us

How do we move away from an overly pious imagining of prayer – a child kneeling by a bedside, grace before meals, attending church ­services in your Sunday best? It isn’t that there is anything wrong with these images, but they are implicitly wound together with a certain vision of moral rectitude and self-righteousness; with a sense of observing oneself doing the right thing.

There is something too safe and comfortable about this imagining of prayer that gives it a dry, lifeless quality. I want to talk about my own experience of prayer in terms of emptiness and presence; to share with you the vision of prayer on which I base my own practice.

To pray is to empty oneself in order to be filled with the presence of God. The work of emptying oneself is immense and lifelong. It involves detailed attention to all the obstacles that obstruct our inner spaciousness, preventing God from dwelling within us.