Cited background on how traditions meet this moment, with no ritual instructions. The texts further down come from named editions and were checked against them; none has yet been signed by a reviewer credentialed in its tradition. How that works.
Most spiritual life is not crisis. It is the Tuesday morning version: a psalm read half awake, beads moved through tired fingers, a prayer said because it is the appointed hour and not because anything is felt. Every major tradition has built structures for exactly this ordinariness, from the Jewish pairing of keva (fixed form) and kavanah (intention) to the five daily prayers of Islam, the Sikh nitnem, and the Orthodox Christian prayer rule. The structures exist because feeling is unreliable, and the traditions have known that for centuries.
The traditions also name the dry seasons. Fourth century desert monks called the flat, restless resistance to prayer acedia. John of the Cross, a sixteenth century Spanish Carmelite, described a "dark night" in which felt consolation disappears, and his tradition reads that absence as a stage of growth rather than a failure. Mother Teresa's published letters record decades of inner darkness alongside unbroken daily practice. Buddhist teaching lists sloth, torpor, and doubt among the classic hindrances every meditator meets. People searching from inside a dry season usually want two things: to know that what they are experiencing has a name and a history, and to know how to keep going, or how to come back after stopping. Both questions have long answers in every tradition, and a growing body of practice, including spiritual direction and its equivalents, exists to accompany people through them.
Across traditions
Awareness-level notes: what this moment tends to involve, tradition by tradition. Each links to its background page.
Daily discipline commonly centers on set times of prayer, scripture reading, and gathered worship, with wide variation by branch. Dryness has a long Christian vocabulary: the desert monks named acedia, the listless resistance to prayer, and many communities treat perseverance through it as normal spiritual work. Spiritual direction, a regular conversation with a trained companion about one's life of prayer, is practiced across Catholic, Orthodox, and many Protestant settings. Returning after a lapse is framed as repentance and welcome, not disqualification.
Catholic tradition holds the most developed named account of dryness: the dark night described by John of the Cross, in which felt consolation withdraws and the person is asked to continue in naked faith. His tradition reads this as purification and closeness rather than abandonment. Mother Teresa's letters, published as Come Be My Light, made this experience widely known. Fixed supports include the Liturgy of the Hours, the rosary, and regular spiritual direction; practice varies by community and vocation.
Orthodox Christians typically keep a prayer rule, a modest set of morning and evening prayers worked out with a priest or spiritual father and kept daily regardless of mood. The Jesus Prayer, repeated quietly through the day, anchors many people's practice. A recurring counsel in the tradition holds that a small rule kept faithfully outweighs an ambitious one soon abandoned. Guidance from a spiritual father or mother is considered ordinary, not exceptional, and lapses are met with confession and return.
Jewish practice pairs keva, the fixed liturgy said at set times, with kavanah, the intention brought to it, and treats the tension between them as permanent rather than solvable. Praying the appointed words without feeling is still considered praying; the form carries the person until intention returns. Return after lapse has its own name, teshuvah, understood as a lifelong capacity rather than a single event. Jewish spiritual direction, hashpa'ah with a mashpia, has grown as a formal practice. Observance varies widely by movement.
The five daily prayers structure Muslim life around fixed times, and the obligation stands whether or not feeling accompanies it. A well known hadith teaches that the deeds most beloved to God are the small consistent ones. Classical scholarship holds that iman, faith, naturally rises and falls, so a low season is expected rather than shameful; the counsel is to keep the prayers, seek good company, and return gently. Sufi communities add guidance under a shaykh or murshid. Practice varies by school and community.
Daily obligation is often framed as nitya karma, practices done every day: puja at a home shrine, japa with a mala, or sandhya rites at dawn and dusk in some communities. Sadhana, sustained personal discipline, is valued precisely because it trains the mind to show up without excuses, and teachers commonly say the practice works on the practitioner whether or not any given session feels alive. Guidance traditionally flows through a guru or family lineage. Forms differ greatly by region, deity, and sampradaya.
Daily practice usually means meditation, chanting, or both, and the tradition catalogs what interrupts it: the five hindrances include sloth and torpor, the heavy dull seasons, and doubt, the erosion of trust in the path itself. Teachers treat these as workable weather, met with adjusted effort rather than self blame. Spiritual friendship, kalyana mitta, is prized; in the Upaddha Sutta the Buddha calls admirable friendship the whole of the holy life. Teacher relationships and forms vary across Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana communities.
Nitnem, literally daily discipline, is the Sikh frame for ordinary practice: set banis recited in the early morning, evening, and before sleep, with the pre dawn hours known as amrit vela held as especially prized. For initiated Sikhs the full nitnem is a commitment undertaken at initiation; many others keep what they can. The practice is understood to build steadiness and constant remembrance across a working life. Sangat, the congregation, and seva, service, carry a person through dry stretches. Detail varies by community.
Spiritual but not religious is a durable path, not a waystation: Pew Research found 22 percent of US adults describe themselves this way, most reporting regular practices of reflection or centering without congregational life. Ordinary discipline may look like meditation, journaling, time outdoors, or a gratitude practice, and it goes dry exactly the way liturgical prayer does. Secular and interfaith spiritual directors, chaplains, and meditation communities now serve this population without asking anyone to adopt a tradition first.
Texts from their published editions
Each text below comes from the edition named under it and was checked twice, independently, before it appeared. Neither check was a person. Where the two disagreed by even one character, the text is not shown here. That is a claim about wording only: these are not selected or endorsed for any particular situation, and nobody credentialed in the tradition has signed them. Older spelling is kept as the edition prints it. The full record, including the texts we held back because the two transcriptions disagreed, is at the verification record.
A ten-verse Pali discourse from the Suttanipata, opening "Karaniyam attha kusalena", setting out the conduct and the boundless goodwill a practitioner extends to all beings. It is one of the core paritta (protective recitation) texts across Theravada Asia, chanted at blessings, at sickbeds, at funerals, and used as the base instruction for metta meditation. Recited in Pali by monastics and laity alike.
English · The Sacred Books of the East, Vol. X: The Dhammapada and Sutta-Nipata, 1881Read twice, independently
Whatever is to be done by one who is skilful in seeking (what is) good, having attained that tranquil state (of Nibbana): — Let him be able and upright and conscientious and of soft speech, gentle, not proud,
And contented and easily supported and having few cares, unburdened and with his senses calmed and wise, not arrogant, without (showing) greediness (when going his round) in families.
And let him not do anything mean for which others who are wise might reprove (him); may all beings be happy and secure, may they be happy-minded.
Whatever living beings there are, either feeble or strong, all either long or great, middle-sized, short, small or large,
Either seen or which are not seen, and which live far (or) near, either born or seeking birth, may all creatures be happy-minded.
Let no one deceive another, let him not despise (another) in any place, let him not out of anger or resentment wish harm to another.
As a mother at the risk of her life watches over her own child, her only child, so also let every one cultivate a boundless (friendly) mind towards all beings.
And let him cultivate goodwill towards all the world, a boundless (friendly) mind, above and below and across, unobstructed, without hatred, without enmity.
Standing, walking or sitting or lying, as long as he be awake, let him devote himself to this mind; this (way of) living they say is the best in this world.
He who, not having embraced (philosophical) views, is virtuous, endowed with (perfect) vision, after subduing greediness for sensual pleasures, will never again go to a mother's womb.
V. Fausboll and F. Max Muller. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1881. Published 1881, before 1929, US public domain, and both translators died before 1929. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
Wording and scope vary between editions and between communities, so this entry is tied to one named edition and makes no claim about which form is right in a given setting.
A fourteenth-century Eucharistic prayer beginning "Soul of Christ, sanctify me", widely attached to thanksgiving after communion and embedded in the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola. It circulates in dozens of English verse and prose renderings, which differ substantially; naming the edition matters more here than for most Catholic prayers.
Wording and scope vary between editions and between communities, so this entry is tied to one named edition and makes no claim about which form is right in a given setting.
A fourteenth-century Eucharistic prayer beginning "Soul of Christ, sanctify me", widely attached to thanksgiving after communion and embedded in the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola. It circulates in dozens of English verse and prose renderings, which differ substantially; naming the edition matters more here than for most Catholic prayers.
Wording and scope vary between editions and between communities, so this entry is tied to one named edition and makes no claim about which form is right in a given setting.
Wording and scope vary between editions and between communities, so this entry is tied to one named edition and makes no claim about which form is right in a given setting.
Bienaventurados los pobres en espíritu: porque de ellos es el reino de los cielos.
Bienaventurados los que lloran: porque ellos recibirán consolación.
Bienaventurados los mansos: porque ellos recibirán la tierra por heredad.
Bienaventurados los que tienen hambre y sed de justicia: porque ellos serán hartos.
Bienaventurados los misericordiosos: porque ellos alcanzarán misericordia.
Bienaventurados los de limpio corazón: porque ellos verán á Dios.
Bienaventurados los pacificadores: porque ellos serán llamados hijos de Dios.
Bienaventurados los que padecen persecución por causa de la justicia: porque de ellos es el reino de los cielos.
Bienaventurados sois cuando os vituperaren y os persiguieren, y dijeren de vosotros todo mal por mi causa, mintiendo.
Gozaos y alegraos; porque vuestra merced es grande en los cielos: que así persiguieron á los profetas que fueron antes de vosotros.
Casiodoro de Reina and Cipriano de Valera, 1909 revision. 1909. Published 1909, before 1929, US public domain, and distributed as public domain by ebible.org. Later Reina-Valera revisions such as RVR1960 are in copyright and are not used here. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
Vosotros pues, oraréis así: Padre nuestro que estás en los cielos, santificado sea tu nombre.
Venga tu reino. Sea hecha tu voluntad, como en el cielo, así también en la tierra.
Danos hoy nuestro pan cotidiano.
Y perdónanos nuestras deudas, como también nosotros perdonamos á nuestros deudores.
Y no nos metas en tentación, mas líbranos del mal: porque tuyo es el reino, y el poder, y la gloria, por todos los siglos. Amén.
Casiodoro de Reina and Cipriano de Valera, 1909 revision. 1909. Published 1909, before 1929, US public domain, and distributed as public domain by ebible.org. Later Reina-Valera revisions such as RVR1960 are in copyright and are not used here. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
Wording and scope vary between editions and between communities, so this entry is tied to one named edition and makes no claim about which form is right in a given setting.
Voici donc comment vous devez prier: Notre Père qui es aux cieux! Que ton nom soit sanctifié;
que ton règne vienne; que ta volonté soit faite sur la terre comme au ciel.
Donne-nous aujourd'hui notre pain quotidien;
pardonne-nous nos offenses, comme nous aussi nous pardonnons à ceux qui nous ont offensés;
ne nous induis pas en tentation, mais délivre-nous du malin. Car c'est à toi qu'appartiennent, dans tous les siècles, le règne, la puissance et la gloire. Amen!
Louis Segond. 1910. Published 1910, before 1929, US public domain; the translator died in 1885. Later Segond revisions such as Segond 21 are in copyright and are not used here. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
Wording and scope vary between editions and between communities, so this entry is tied to one named edition and makes no claim about which form is right in a given setting.
Sefaria, from the Unicode/XML Leningrad Codex at tanach.us, 2026. Tanach.us states that all biblical Hebrew text on its site may be viewed or copied without restriction, and Sefaria labels this version Public Domain. Retrieved and verified 2026-09-17. Cite as: Psalms 100:1-5, Tanach with Nikkud, a digital edition of the Leningrad Codex, via Sefaria.org. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
Wording and scope vary between editions and between communities, so each edition here is named and this entry makes no claim about which form is right in a given setting. The English keeps the line breaks of one digitisation of the 1917 volume. The second, which it was checked against, stores each verse as running text, so it confirms the words and cannot confirm where a line ends.
Bless the LORD, O my soul: a psalm of thanks for forgiveness and healing, which sets human frailty, days like grass, against a mercy that does not end.
Sefaria, from the Unicode/XML Leningrad Codex at tanach.us, 2026. Tanach.us states that all biblical Hebrew text on its site may be viewed or copied without restriction, and Sefaria labels this version Public Domain. Retrieved and verified 2026-09-17. Cite as: Psalms 103:1-22, Tanach with Nikkud, a digital edition of the Leningrad Codex, via Sefaria.org. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
Wording and scope vary between editions and between communities, so each edition here is named and this entry makes no claim about which form is right in a given setting. The English keeps the line breaks of one digitisation of the 1917 volume. The second, which it was checked against, stores each verse as running text, so it confirms the words and cannot confirm where a line ends.
One of the Songs of Ascents, a short psalm of protection for one setting out or in danger. Used in Jewish practice at times of travel, illness and childbirth, and included in some funeral and memorial orders. Often paired with Psalm 130 in visits to the sick.
Sefaria, from the Unicode/XML Leningrad Codex at tanach.us, 2026. Tanach.us states that all biblical Hebrew text on its site may be viewed or copied without restriction, and Sefaria labels this version Public Domain. Retrieved and verified 2026-09-02. Cite as: Psalms 121:1-8, Tanach with Nikkud, a digital edition of the Leningrad Codex, via Sefaria.org. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
Wording and scope vary between editions and between communities, so each edition here is named and this entry makes no claim about which form is right in a given setting. The two columns do not cover quite the same span: the Hebrew opens with the psalm's superscription, “A Song of Ascents”, which the English published here does not carry, because the two transcription passes over the JPS volume agreed only from the first verse proper.
Sefaria, from the Unicode/XML Leningrad Codex at tanach.us, 2026. Tanach.us states that all biblical Hebrew text on its site may be viewed or copied without restriction, and Sefaria labels this version Public Domain. Retrieved and verified 2026-09-17. Cite as: Psalms 126:1-6, Tanach with Nikkud, a digital edition of the Leningrad Codex, via Sefaria.org. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
Wording and scope vary between editions and between communities, so each edition here is named and this entry makes no claim about which form is right in a given setting. The English keeps the line breaks of one digitisation of the 1917 volume. The second, which it was checked against, stores each verse as running text, so it confirms the words and cannot confirm where a line ends.
Sefaria, from the Unicode/XML Leningrad Codex at tanach.us, 2026. Tanach.us states that all biblical Hebrew text on its site may be viewed or copied without restriction, and Sefaria labels this version Public Domain. Retrieved and verified 2026-09-17. Cite as: Psalms 150:1-6, Tanach with Nikkud, a digital edition of the Leningrad Codex, via Sefaria.org. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
Wording and scope vary between editions and between communities, so each edition here is named and this entry makes no claim about which form is right in a given setting. The English keeps the line breaks of one digitisation of the 1917 volume. The second, which it was checked against, stores each verse as running text, so it confirms the words and cannot confirm where a line ends.
The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? It is said twice a day from the start of the month of Elul through the autumn festivals, the season of repentance.
Sefaria, from the Unicode/XML Leningrad Codex at tanach.us, 2026. Tanach.us states that all biblical Hebrew text on its site may be viewed or copied without restriction, and Sefaria labels this version Public Domain. Retrieved and verified 2026-09-17. Cite as: Psalms 27:1-14, Tanach with Nikkud, a digital edition of the Leningrad Codex, via Sefaria.org. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
Wording and scope vary between editions and between communities, so each edition here is named and this entry makes no claim about which form is right in a given setting. The English keeps the line breaks of one digitisation of the 1917 volume. The second, which it was checked against, stores each verse as running text, so it confirms the words and cannot confirm where a line ends.
HEAR, O ISRAEL: THE LORD OUR GOD, THE LORD IS ONE.
And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be upon thy heart;
and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thy hand, and they shall be for frontlets between thine eyes.
And thou shalt write them upon the door-posts of thy house, and upon thy gates.
Jewish Publication Society of America, 1917. Published 1917, before 1929, US public domain. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
Sefaria, from the Unicode/XML Leningrad Codex at tanach.us, 2026. Tanach.us states that all biblical Hebrew text on its site may be viewed or copied without restriction, and Sefaria labels this version Public Domain. Retrieved and verified 2026-09-01. Cite as: Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Tanach with Nikkud, a digital edition of the Leningrad Codex, via Sefaria.org. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
Wording and scope vary between editions and between communities, so each edition here is named and this entry makes no claim about which form is right in a given setting. This is the biblical paragraph, not the Shema as a siddur prints it for prayer: the liturgy runs to three paragraphs, inserts a line after the first verse that is not part of the biblical text, and prints the enlarged ayin and dalet of verse 4 that are shown here at ordinary size.
A short sura of consolation: your Lord has not left you, and what comes will be better than what has gone. People turn to it in low spirits and in grief.
Tanzil Project (https://tanzil.net/), served by alquran.cloud, 2026. Not public domain, and the first licensed edition in this corpus. Tanzil grants permission to copy and distribute verbatim copies provided the source is named and tanzil.net is linked, and forbids altering the text. Both conditions are met here. Retrieved and verified 2026-09-17. Source
Licensed, not public domain: copy it only word for word, and name and link the source as its terms require. The terms.
The Arabic is published without an English rendering. The securely public-domain English translations are nineteenth-century orientalist work that no Muslim community uses devotionally, and setting one beside the Arabic would present it as the meaning of the prayer. Recitation in Islamic practice has conditions this entry makes no claim about; what is verified here is the wording of the edition named below.
Four lines stating the oneness of God, described in hadith as weighing a third of the Qur'an. Recited constantly, inside the daily prayers and outside them.
Tanzil Project (https://tanzil.net/), served by alquran.cloud, 2026. Not public domain, and the first licensed edition in this corpus. Tanzil grants permission to copy and distribute verbatim copies provided the source is named and tanzil.net is linked, and forbids altering the text. Both conditions are met here. Retrieved and verified 2026-09-04. Source
Licensed, not public domain: copy it only word for word, and name and link the source as its terms require. The terms.
The Arabic is published without an English rendering. The securely public-domain English translations are nineteenth-century orientalist work that no Muslim community uses devotionally, and setting one beside the Arabic would present it as the meaning of the prayer. Recitation in Islamic practice has conditions this entry makes no claim about; what is verified here is the wording of the edition named below.
Tanzil Project (https://tanzil.net/), served by alquran.cloud, 2026. Not public domain, and the first licensed edition in this corpus. Tanzil grants permission to copy and distribute verbatim copies provided the source is named and tanzil.net is linked, and forbids altering the text. Both conditions are met here. Retrieved and verified 2026-09-04. Source
Licensed, not public domain: copy it only word for word, and name and link the source as its terms require. The terms.
The Arabic is published without an English rendering. The securely public-domain English translations are nineteenth-century orientalist work that no Muslim community uses devotionally, and setting one beside the Arabic would present it as the meaning of the prayer. Recitation in Islamic practice has conditions this entry makes no claim about; what is verified here is the wording of the edition named below.
Musa, sent to confront Pharaoh, asks for his heart to be opened, his task eased and his speech made clear. Said before an examination, a speech or any work that frightens.
Tanzil Project (https://tanzil.net/), served by alquran.cloud, 2026. Not public domain, and the first licensed edition in this corpus. Tanzil grants permission to copy and distribute verbatim copies provided the source is named and tanzil.net is linked, and forbids altering the text. Both conditions are met here. Retrieved and verified 2026-09-17. Source
Licensed, not public domain: copy it only word for word, and name and link the source as its terms require. The terms.
The Arabic is published without an English rendering. The securely public-domain English translations are nineteenth-century orientalist work that no Muslim community uses devotionally, and setting one beside the Arabic would present it as the meaning of the prayer. Recitation in Islamic practice has conditions this entry makes no claim about; what is verified here is the wording of the edition named below.
The prayer to the Holy Spirit that opens almost every Orthodox service and most private prayer. It is left out between Pascha and Pentecost, when the tradition waits for the Spirit's coming rather than invoking it.
O heavenly King, the Comforter, Spirit of Truth, who art in all places and fillest all things; Treasury of good things and Giver of life: Come and take up thine abode in us, and cleanse us from every stain; and save our souls, O Good One.
Isabel Florence Hapgood. Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Boston and New York, 1906. Published 1906, before 1929, US public domain, and the translator died in 1928. Retrieved and verified 2026-09-17. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
Hapgood's is one English rendering among several, and most parishes today use a later one; hers is printed here because it is the one that is out of copyright. She is also not consistent with herself. The same prayer appears with different punctuation in different services of the same 1906 volume, so this is the text as printed in the Third Hour, and makes no claim to be the only form.
The hymn of Pascha, sung over and over through the Easter season and used as a greeting between people in that season. It is also sung at the burial of a Christian who dies during Easter week, which is where its use at a death comes from.
Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down Death by death, and upon those in the tomb bestowing life.
Isabel Florence Hapgood. Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Boston and New York, 1906. Published 1906, before 1929, US public domain, and the translator died in 1928. Retrieved and verified 2026-09-17. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
Hapgood's is one English rendering among several, and most parishes today use a later one; hers is printed here because it is the one that is out of copyright. She is also not consistent with herself. The same prayer appears with different punctuation in different services of the same 1906 volume, so this is the text as printed in the Order for the Burial of the Dead (Laymen), and makes no claim to be the only form.
The thrice-holy hymn: one line addressing God as holy, mighty and immortal. It is sung in the Divine Liturgy, said three times near the start of most prayer, and chanted as a body is carried to burial.
O Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal One, have mercy upon us.
Isabel Florence Hapgood. Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Boston and New York, 1906. Published 1906, before 1929, US public domain, and the translator died in 1928. Retrieved and verified 2026-09-17. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
Hapgood's is one English rendering among several, and most parishes today use a later one; hers is printed here because it is the one that is out of copyright. She is also not consistent with herself. The same prayer appears with different punctuation in different services of the same 1906 volume, so this is the text as printed in the Third Hour, and makes no claim to be the only form.
A short evening collect in the Order for Evening Prayer in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, translated from the Gelasian tradition into English at the 1549 reform and carried forward unchanged. It is one of three fixed collects said daily at Evensong by clergy and laity alike, and it is the text most often reached for at bedside vigils and at the close of a difficult day.
and dangers of this night, for the love of thy only
Son, our Saviour Iesus Christ. Amen.
Church of England, 1662. Published 1662, long before 1929, US public domain. UK Crown patent applies within the United Kingdom, so this edition is used here on the US basis only. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
time with one accord to make our common supplications vnto thee, and do'st promise that when
two or three are gathered together in thy Name,
thou wilt grant their Requests ; fulfill now, O Lord,
the desires and petitions of thy servants, as may
be most expedient for them, granting vs in this
world knowledge of thy truth, and in the world to
come life everlasting. Amen.
Church of England, 1662. Published 1662, long before 1929, US public domain. UK Crown patent applies within the United Kingdom, so this edition is used here on the US basis only. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
A song of ascents used across Protestant and Anglican practice at departures, surgery, travel and deathbeds. It appears in the monthly Prayer Book psalm cycle and in most Protestant funeral and hospital orders, and it is among the psalms most frequently chosen by families asked to pick one.
I will lift vp mine eyes vnto the hills : from whence cometh my help.
My help cometh even from the Lord : who hath made heaven and earth.
He will not suffer thy foot to be moved : and he that keepeth thee will not sleep.
Behold, he that keepeth Jsrael : shall neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord himself is thy keeper : the Lord is thy defence vpon thy right hand.
So that the sun shall not burn thee by day : neither the Moon by night.
The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil : yea it is even he that shall keep thy soule.
The Lord shall preserve thy going out, and thy coming in from this time forth for evermore.
Church of England, 1662. Published 1662, long before 1929, US public domain. UK Crown patent applies within the United Kingdom, so this edition is used here on the US basis only. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
If someone tells you their prayer life has gone dead, resist the urge to fix it or explain it. Dryness is one of the most common experiences reported across traditions, and the person usually needs witness more than advice. Ask what their practice normally looks like and what it looks like now; the gap tells you more than any label. Ask whether they want company in it, and whether talking with someone from their own tradition would help, before assuming either. Never imply the dryness is caused by weak faith or hidden fault, and never quiz a lapsed person about why they stopped. For patients, a chaplain can be offered without any religious commitment attached, and the offer itself often matters. If the flatness extends beyond spiritual life into sleep, appetite, and interest in everything, gently name that a doctor or counselor may belong in the conversation alongside any spiritual companion. Small consistency, kept without drama, is what most traditions actually recommend.
When to call someone instead: Call a person rather than reaching for a text when dryness has lasted long enough to threaten the practice itself, when someone wants to return after years away and does not know how to begin, or when spiritual flatness is tangled with grief, illness, or depression. Clergy of the person's own tradition, a hospital or hospice chaplain, or a trained spiritual director or companion are the right calls; secular and interfaith directors exist for people outside any tradition. If the emptiness is global, with sleep, appetite, and energy affected, a mental health professional belongs in the picture too.
Need your own words right now? The composer assembles a short prayer for spiritual life from human-written lines, with or without religious language, free and without sending anything you type to anyone.
Questions people arrive with
Is it normal to pray or meditate and feel nothing?#
Yes, and every major tradition says so in its own vocabulary. Jewish teaching expects fixed prayer to outrun feeling and lets the form carry the person. Catholic tradition names long dry stretches, including the dark night described by John of the Cross. Buddhist teaching lists sloth, torpor, and doubt among the standard hindrances. Islamic scholarship holds that faith naturally rises and falls. Feeling nothing is a season, not a verdict, and the near universal counsel is to keep a small practice going.
The phrase comes from John of the Cross, a sixteenth century Spanish Carmelite mystic, who used it for a stage in which felt consolation in prayer disappears and the person continues in bare faith. In his account this is purification, a sign of God working closely rather than absently. The term is now used loosely for any spiritual desolation, but the original concept is specific and is best explored with a spiritual director or knowledgeable clergy rather than self diagnosed.
Traditions consistently advise starting small rather than attempting to rebuild everything at once. Judaism frames return as teshuvah, a capacity always available, not a test to pass. A hadith central to Muslim practice praises small deeds done consistently over grand efforts abandoned. Orthodox Christian counsel favors a modest rule kept daily. Most communities are far more welcoming to returners than returners expect. Clergy, a chaplain, or a spiritual director can help shape a realistic beginning.
What is a spiritual director, and do I need to be religious to see one?#
A spiritual director or companion meets with a person regularly to listen to their inner life and help them notice what is moving in it. The practice has deep Christian roots and now has equivalents elsewhere: hashpa'ah with a mashpia in Judaism, guidance under a shaykh in Sufi Islam, teacher and spiritual friendship in Buddhism. Organizations such as Spiritual Directors International include directors who work across traditions and with people who belong to none.
Nearby moments
Faith: Holding on to belief, and finding it again.
Peace: Peace of mind, peace in a household, peace between peoples.
Sources
The claims above rest on the following. Where practice varies, the variation is stated rather than resolved.
Spirituality Among Americans, Pew Research Center (2023). Survey of 11,201 US adults; source for the 22 percent spiritual but not religious figure and the practices and beliefs of that group.
Keva and Kavanah, My Jewish Learning. Explains the Jewish pairing of fixed prayer form and intention, and the tradition's acceptance of praying without felt inspiration.
Dark Night of the Soul, Wikipedia. Overview of John of the Cross, his poem and commentary, and the concept of passive purification behind the popular phrase.
Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, Brian Kolodiejchuk (ed.) (2007). Published private letters documenting decades of spiritual darkness and dryness alongside unbroken daily practice; the modern reference case for practice without feeling.
Working with the Five Hindrances: Sloth and Torpor, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. Buddhist framing of dullness and low energy in practice as a named, workable hindrance rather than a personal failure.
What is Spiritual Direction and Companionship?, Spiritual Directors International. Defines spiritual direction and documents its practice across traditions and outside traditional religious community.
Nitnem, Wikipedia. Describes the Sikh daily discipline of set banis at morning, evening, and night, and the obligation for initiated Sikhs.
Admirable friendship: kalyanamittata, Access to Insight. Canonical basis (Upaddha Sutta, SN 45.2) for spiritual friendship as the whole of the holy life in Buddhist teaching.
Content last changed 6 October 2026. Dates come from this page’s own revision history, not from the last time the site was deployed.
