Praise
In the hush between breaths, praise is not a performance but a return. Not to a stage, but to a clearing in the woods, where the light breaks through the canopy just enough to warm your hands. To praise is to lean close to the heartbeat of life, to let it speak before we answer, to kneel not out of duty but because the ground has softened beneath us. There is an ancient knowing that gathers when we become still enough to receive it—like the murmur of ancestors in the wind threading through pine needles, or the solemn nod of a deer as it slips between trees unnoticed.
Praise, in its truest form, is not loud. It does not clamor for approval or chase after recognition. It is the child’s open mouth at snowfall. The dog who runs full sprint through grass. It is Mary Oliver’s astonishment—her invitation to laugh and bow and exhale because it is all so dazzling and hard and sacred. It is Rilke’s winepress heart, breaking in order to pour, crushing only to give. It is Thurman’s whisper in the quiet, a whisper that does not fill the silence but deepens it, gives it texture, breath, and memory.
We learn to praise by listening—not with our ears alone but with our lives. Listening to those who came before us, who sat in their own bewilderment and chose tenderness. Who learned to “center down” (Howard Thurman), not to escape the world but to find it again, anew, shimmering with divinity. Thomas Merton reminds us that the sun’s rising is a summons, not just to wake, but to praise—our very existence invited to participate in the world’s liturgy. James Finley calls us to a love that protects us from nothing and yet sustains us in everything. This is not sentimental spirituality; it is raw, radical presence.
In a world of noise and speed, to praise like this is subversive. It is to risk attention. It is to walk into mystery, to be willing to be dazzled and undone, to let the dragons be princesses and the fear be gateway. Praise is not the end of the spiritual path; it is the soil under every step. It asks nothing more than your willingness to notice—really notice—the sound of your own genuine voice rising, not as echo, but as offering.
Praise is the soul's quiet offering to what is real and enduring. It is not confined to religious ritual or verbal affirmation, but is the natural overflow of a deeply attentive and courageous heart. To praise is to be awake to the beauty and terror of life, to honor the mystery we cannot control, and to enter into humble communion with the wisdom of those who’ve walked before us. True praise draws us inward and outward at once, awakening us to a transformative union with all things through love, attention, and surrender.
Praise is the slow exhale after the wound
the soft light pooling at the edge of doubt
the hush that falls when we finally listen
not to answers, but to the ache that stays.
It is the bowl left out in the rain
filling with whatever comes
the silent nod to the sparrow’s flight
the tear we do not wipe away.
It is how the ancestors rise
in the quiet hours
to sing through our bones
until we remember
we were never meant to go alone.
It is the courage
to be amazed again.