Maria David doesn't commune with the divine only in the morning, during daily school prayers in the basement assembly hall at Cathedral School in Nu'uanu. At home, the 13-year-old turns to the prayer of St. Francis or a book on novena, a gift from her mother.

"I always pray before a test," said Maria, a seventh-grader, "and it seems to help me."

The young teenager's prayer life is pretty full. Her schoolmates also say an abbreviated rosary daily and ask for the healing of sick family and friends, such as their ailing sensei, a Japanese teacher who is in need of special prayers — especially theirs.

"God listens to children," Maria said, matter-of-factly.

People in Hawai'i turn to the divine in a variety of ways, and there are a multitude of ways to connect with the spiritual, whatever one's faith. According to a Gallup Poll in 1999, nearly three-quarters of Americans pray daily. And the majority of those say their prayers were "conversational" in nature, with just 15 percent saying their prayers are meditative or reflective, and 13 percent saying "formal," such as reciting the Lord's Prayer.

Catholics are the most likely to use formal prayers. During this season of Lent, the time that precedes Easter, Hawai'i Catholics will often make their way around their parish's stations of the cross, a very common walking prayer.

MANY TRADITIONS

Hawai'i has indigenous spiritual traditions that are kept by many native people who follow the traditional ways, speaking not to a single deity but to their ancestors, to the 'aumakua found in nature, to kupuna.

"For Hawaiians, it was a 24-hour-a-day, constant type of thing; communion was a constant," explained La'akea Suganuma, a traditional Hawaiian spirituality practitioner and president of the Royal Hawaiian Academy of Traditional Arts.

"If somebody went out in canoe, prayers were (said) for a safe return. Every endeavor was a partnership between you, your sisters and a higher power. It can be anytime, anywhere."

Suganuma calls his kind of praying a "constant awareness": "If you have a choice, you can seek a place, but to me, it's more of an all-day thing. If I need inspiration, I ask. If I'm looking for something, if I need a parking space." He chuckled. "Funny, there's a parking space. It's like a running conversation."

Don't mistake prayer for meditation.

"In the Buddhist sense, we don't have a kind of prayer like you see in Christianity or Islam," said the Rev. Yukiko Motoyoshi of Honpa Hongwanji. "In our denomination we do have a meditation, but it is not exactly a front issue."

With Islam, another monotheistic religion, prayer is part of the daily ritual of the devout, with Muslims facing Mecca and saying salat (prayers) five times a day.

There's also yoga for the Hindu, standing prayer, walking prayers like those using a labyrinth, sacred song and sacred dance, too.

EVOLUTION OF PRAYER

Patti Pierce, founder and president of Women at the Well Ministries, who was here for last weekend's Hawaiian Island Ministries convention, counseled dozens of local pastors Thursday about different ways Christians pray.

"What I see prayer to be in the Christian tradition, in the broadest sense, is communication to God through Jesus," said Pierce, who is based in Menlo Park, Calif. "It's broader than words sometimes. Conversation on the whole is speaking and listening, and we tend to be better at speaking than listening."

She likes to focus on the listening kinds of prayers, meditative practices that were lost over time but are re-emerging in Christendom.

Interest is growing widely in contemplative prayers. They are a centering way to pray — more akin to meditation than formal prayer. However, for Judeo-Christians, there's a subtle difference: Instead of emptying oneself, as Buddhists do through meditation and chanting, there's a focus.

"There is a quieting and an attentiveness," explained the Rev. Nancy Conley, an Episcopal deacon and another fan of contemplative prayer.

As director of the Spiritual Life Center, an ecumenical center that teaches classes on prayer, Conley tries to employ a broad spectrum of prayers, from meditations and songs to rosaries and intercessory prayers.

"Most traditions use a variety of ways to connect with that God — whatever, whoever or whatever they call that — and relate to it," Conley said.

Conley and Pierce talked about another form of prayer that's gaining attention with Christians: lectio divina, a kind of prayer that harkens back to the early monks and that uses Scriptures. Instead of scan-reading the Bible for meaning, people using lectio divina may attempt a kind of slow, deliberate reading; some even focus on a single word or phrase. (In Latin, "lectio" is book and "divina" is divine. )

"It's an invitation for the Holy Spirit to use Scriptures to speak to me," said Pierce.

While she's most familiar with Christian prayer, Conley noted that those who follow Western religious tradition are drawing from Eastern practice in adapting a more quiet approach to prayer.

There are other similarities, too. "Eastern traditions also use beads, as we use the rosary," Conley said.

Praying with the use of icons is not just a Christian thing, either, Conley added. For example, Buddhists will place a statue of the Buddha on their altars, just as some Christians include a statue of the Virgin Mary on theirs.

Healing prayers are becoming more common, too, using healing touch and the laying of the hands, she said.

Don't rule out the kneelers, though: Cathedral student Keeli Glipa, 8, likes to get on her knees on her bed when she prays for her brother, Travis, 25, who had to go to Washington for surgery for cancer. And it wasn't all for naught.

"He got really better," the third-grader reported.