Pray

The great thing is prayer. Prayer itself. 

If you want a life of prayer, the way to get started is by praying.

You start where you are and you deepen what you already have.

                          — Thomas Merton,  Trappist Monk and Author                           

Prayer is union with God.

If you want to pray better, you must pray more.

  — Saint Teresa of Calcutta,  saint to the poor, ill and dying

I’m gonna pray now; anyone want anything?

— Flip Wilson, 1970’s era comedian and actor

Yesterday, in asking whether you found spoken prayer or silent prayer more helpful, if I came across as suggesting one is better than the other or created a false dichotomy, that was not my intention. Both are, of course, valid. Both can be efficacious. One can be of help in one season and the other in another season, or both can be beneficial for seasons at a time. Indeed there are many ways of praying, all of which at one time or another can be beneficial.

With that in mind, my questions for today are:  Why do we pray? What is prayer for? Who, if anyone, is changed by prayer? And what, if anything is accomplished by praying?

In my experience prayer does not function like a wishing well or vending machine. Put in the proper currency of faith and make your wish or push the button of your request, and it will be granted to you. Prayer is not about getting what we want.  In my opinion, prayer is mostly about tending to a relationship. Much like one would tend to a relationship with one’s parent or spouse or child or friend, prayer is a way of tending to our relationship with God.

As Julian of Norwich wrote:

God of your goodness, give me yourself, for you are sufficient for me… If I were to ask anything less I should always be in want, for in you   alone do I have all. [1] 

Through prayer, spoken yes, and contemplative yes, each of us has access to the presence of God presenc-ing God’s self to us. To be clear, God is already present to us. God is already standing before us attempting to give us good things, most especially God’s sustaining love. But our lives are so full of stuff, activity, noise, distraction, that our senses are clouded to God’s loving presence right in front of us. When we pray we assume a stance of least resistance, open to God’s love which is already flowing toward us, and our relationship is tended, and we are changed.

That, it seems to me, is what prayer is for.

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[1] Julian of Norwich, 1342-1413  From The Doubleday Prayer Collection, compiled by Mary Batchelor (New York: Doubleday, 1996)

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