Sensory prayer is a way of praying that engages all of our senses. We are beings who communicate and relate to the world around us through our five senses (sight, sound, touch, smell, taste), in this way we are sensual and sensory people. Each of us uses our senses to a varying degree—some may be aural people who perceive primarily through sound, others are more visual, and some have a strong smell recognition (there are studies about how for some smells are the primary way memories are recorded). To neglect these aspects of scripture and prayer is to neglect communicating with each other and God through our God-created senses. We are also people who exist in time and space, and sensory prayer takes seriously the reality of who we are created to be with our senses and temporality.
Guidelines
1. Locate yourself in the biblical story. Listen to the story read and imagine what the setting may be. Decide what point-of-view you are looking from: overhead, underneath, straight on, close-up, distant, etc.
2. Put yourself somewhere into the story. With your imagination, and as vividly as possible, choose to be a character in the story. The character may be a person, animal, or other part of God’s creation. For example, you may choose to be a tree and imagine what the story would be from a tree’s perspective.
3. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you in a personal sharing with the story. Imagine yourself open to a new perspective and understanding of this story in scripture.
4. Read carefully and slowly through the selected passage, applying all of your five senses, seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting. You can pause the story, speed it up, change your perspective or point-of-view as you feel led to do so in your reading.
a. Seeing—Visualize the biblical scene as you ponder the passage. Just like a movie produce creates scenery for a movie, you can watch the scene take place. What would you like to see happen? What actually happens?
b. Hearing—Listen to what the people say and what their voices may sound like. Listen to what the sounds of the setting may be. Listen to what you might have said yourself, listen to what is said, and what is not said.
c. Touching—Feel the action take place. Touch walls, or lepers, or the hem of Jesus’ cloak or whatever else is in the story. Feel the warmth of love, the swell of gratitude, or the quivering of fear. Feel the texture and emotion of the story.
d. Smelling—Smell the animals, the dusty road, the farmer’s market. What does Jesus smell like if he is traveling or resting, or acting? What do the other characters and the scene smell like?
e. Taste—What might the air taste like or the bread and wine? There are five different kinds of taste: sweet, sour, bitter, tangy, and spicy. Can you taste the bitter wrath of the Pharisees, the sweetness of Jesus’ smile or the spiciness of the devil’s presence?
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5. Ponder how your new experience of this story through your senses might apply to a situation in your own life? What have you encountered that the Holy Spirit may be trying to prompt you to understand more fully?
6. Write down or record in some way the insights that come. You may perhaps find more insights in drawing, or the writing down of your experience. Ask further questions of your experience. If you are confused, ask why? If you are happy, distracted, sad, bored, joyful, anxious, ask why.
7. Talk with God. Find yourself dialoguing with God in the presence of God. Be authentically who you are with all of your questions, insights, and life situations. Talk to God in your own words, and in your own way. Nothing said by you will shock, bore, or intimidate God.
8. Ask God for what you truly and deeply want. What you want most of all. It may be helpful to write it down. Then let your request go. Let it go into God’s hands.
