Better late than never?

So since beginning reading this book, one of the things it has delighted me to see author struggle with has been this idea of prayer. Early on, he gets stuck, because “If I’m going to play Christian, I know that prayer is something I have to do. But, as an agnostic, I can’t get over the feeling that I’m talking to the ceiling, or worse yet, I’ve finally lost it and I’m talking to myself.”

I found myself thinking more about prayer as I know or understand it. So I took it back to the masses, and for two days my facebook status was a question, “What is prayer to you? Why do people do it? Is there a right or wrong way to do it?” And while there were some people I urged to answer the question, I was none-the-less impressed at who turned up to give an answer. I had a couple pastors take the question on, a handful of seminary candidates and students, some friends from church, some friends from school, and even a couple of my agnostic and atheist friends took it on. People who didn’t feel comfortable, didn’t post to my wall, they messaged me.

I was surprised to find that the people in my life that I would consider devout, had much the same opinion as each other- even though they range from conservative Baptists (one of my friends feels that the only way to pray is face down kneeling, so as to get a small taste of the suffering of the disciples) to pretty liberal (like the friend who feels that anytime you think about God, you’re praying). All of them said in one way or another that prayer was about, “telling God that you love him, that you’re sorry for things you’ve done wrong, and that you’ll try to do better.” While some phrased it much more eloquently (that answer was given by an ex-camper of mine, a current 8th grader), the answer was a good summary of the language that some of the more sophisticated answers used. They said things like “it’s time to draw close to God” or “prayer is time to meditate your heart on things not of this world.” * The major theme they all seem to point to is that prayer is not about you, it’s about God. This is the Christian tenet of selflessness playing out through and through.

My non-religious friends (agnostics for the most part, with an occasional atheist for style points) took an entirely different tact. They responded with things like “prayer is the precipitate of protestant guilt” or “prayer is talking to yourself to make you feel better” or “prayer is a coping mechanism to help Christians deal with situations that are outside of their control, its what they do when casseroles aren’t helping.” Due to the fact that these respondents doubt the existence of a God, their perspectives on prayer all make it clear that it really is about the “pray-er” not the recipient.

So here’s where things get interesting. Flame me if you want to, but more and more I think our non-believing friends might be closer to the mark. The narrator starts his journey just trying to pray once a day. He recites scripture the way that a lot of us were raised praying “now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord, my soul to keep.” ** While he appreciates the beauty of the scripture, it doesn’t move him. It merely serves as a place holder. It is something to say when you don’t know what to say.

So after getting in this routine, he tries to go “off book.” Just pray. Just do it. Just talk to God. He finds that he can’t. In his head he’s balancing check books and making “to do” lists. He’s trying to remember to ask his wife about various concerns. He’s making a mental note to be stricter with his son. He’s every where but present. So he goes to the experts and one of them teaches him the acronym “ACTS.” Prayer should contain Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication.

Instead of trying to get each one into every prayer he decides to focus on them one at a time starting with Thanksgiving. For that week he thanks God for everything, for his job, his wife, his son, his apartment, his family, etc. But then he gets to a meal time and he thanks God for the green beans, and then for the company that processed them to get rid of the rotten ones, the harvesters who plucked them from the ground, the rain and irrigation that had watered them, the soil they had grown in, the people who had weeded them, those who had planted them, the owners of the farm, the stock people, the packaging people, and even the worms. He says, “My wife was clearing her throat loudly, and often. My son had started eating already. But I realized suddenly how much time and effort had gone into getting that green bean on to my plate. I felt at the same time both very small in the course of human events, and also very connected to the world around me.”

One of the things that the narrator notices is that when he has to take time from his life to recite scripture, or pray for others, or give thanks, he becomes a more centered person. He becomes more aware of the small part he plays in the universe, and more empathetic to the suffering of others. He is both more conscious of what he says in prayer, and more aware of the things on which he chooses to give time to. The man becomes connected. Eventually, he goes from dreading sitting staring at the ceiling for 10 minutes, three times a day, to being in a place where he looks forward to and even longs for those quiet times. He needs to connect.

This is what I mean when I say that maybe the agnostics and atheists were more right than we give them credit for. Maybe prayer isn’t supposed to bend God’s Will to ours. It isn’t supposed to be a wish list, even a well intentioned wish list. It is instead supposed to change us. Maybe the commands to pray without ceasing, have little to do with God needing to be told that he’s the ruler of the universe and more to do with knowing that it’d be good for us to keep that at the forefront of our minds.

Maybe prayer isn’t about what you say.
It’s about what you hear.
Maybe it isn’t about you.
Maybe it’s about connecting.











*I really wish that the religious communities would stop talking in this fluff language, it makes it really hard to relate to us if you’re just peeking in on our lives. Say what you mean, don’t worry about the “prettiness” of it.

**I end it here because there are many ways for this to end. Some people say “if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” Me? I was raised on “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. Guard me, Jesus, through the night, and wake me with the morning light.”