In circles. Circles within circles of growing intimacy. Knowing, yida, is not cataloging data points, but becoming intimately familiar, a process that takes time and for which our soil must be prepared. In the first circle journey of prayer we develop awareness by establishing the structure and framework of formal, word-based prayer. Without structure, we can’t practice awareness into the muscle memory that takes us to the second circle, the process of knowing as mindful, wordless meditation, the silence of God’s native language. Until we can get out of the way, become fluent in silence, we can’t know God’s essence, which we can then carry third circle into our lives with the practice of presence. A homecoming of realization that we don’t need to do anything other than whatever we do all day long to know God’s will—as the how of our doing, not the what. That with the how of God’s deepest purpose and delight, any what becomes the exact center of God’s will.

There is no substitute for traveling these circles within circles. Knowing as intimate familiarity can’t be transferred or bestowed. It can only be experienced, circle after circle, coming back to an expanded home…knowing ourselves and the place again and again for the first time.