Many of us think of prayer as a religious duty. Some take this seriously, loping smoothly through the well-worn formulas as a daily obligation. Others draw the line at an hour or two of synagogue on High Holidays. Both approaches have lost contact with the original prayer urge, the irrepressible surge of gratitude or the crushing hopelessness that brings forth true prayer. The idea that we ourselves might stand before God and pray from the heart is almost unthinkable.

But our souls accept only one outcome when it comes to prayer: transformation. We do not wish just to spin our mental wheels: We want to be changed. We want to be moved. We want to end in a better place than where we started. Our souls yearn for this. If we really mean the words we say, how can we help but be moved?

That's why davening takes us on a journey. This is especially true in the morning prayers. The Rabbis imagined us starting the minute we swing our feet over the side of the bed. We may wake up stiff and rumpled and bleary-eyed; we might feel cranky and old, already dreading half the tasks we have to do today. No matter: the invitation to prayer says "come as you are." We will start slowly, rise and go deeper, and return in a better frame of mind and spirit. Prayer properly and truly done -- even if we only spend twenty good minutes -- will leave us feeling cleansed and at peace, ready to greet the day with gratitude, energy, and purpose.

-- Reb Zalman (Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi), in Davening: A Guide to Meaningful Jewish Prayer

When I'm leading prayer at my shul and we reach the round of daily morning blessings -- usually called birchot ha-shachar, "blessings of the morning;" the current Reform siddur calls them Nisim She'b'chol Yom, the Miracles of Each Day -- I usually pause and note that these blessings were originally designed to be said at home, organically, as we're waking up.

We hear the rooster crow (or, more likely, the alarm clock or the footfalls of the small child padding up the stairs) and instead of thinking "oy, time to get up already?" -- or, perhaps, after thinking that! -- we think, "Oh! Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Source of all being, Who gives the bird of dawn the discernment to tell day from night!"

And then, getting up out of bed and stretching, we think: Oh! Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Source of all being, Who straightens the bent!

And then, as we take our first steps away from bed, we think: Oh! Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Source of all being, Who makes firm our steps! And so on, and so on.

"On the off-chance that perhaps you woke up this morning and didn't automatically pray these blessings," (I say, and usually people chuckle, which is exactly what I'm hoping for), "the creators of our siddur wisely added these blessings to the siddur, so that we can say them together this morning, with heart and with intention."

Prayer can be a lot of different things. But one of the modalities of prayer which I love best is this one: the chance to imbue ordinary moments with a consciousness of what's holy. The chance to offer gratitude. To rub the crust out of our eyes and thank God Who removes sleep from the eyes and slumber from the eyelids. To say: no matter who I am, or where I am, or what's going on with me today, I'm grateful to have woken up this morning, and to be alive.