My experiences have caused me to question my assumptions about prayer. I used to think it was important to ask God to make my life and the lives of those I love smooth and pleasant. I think now that indicated that I distrusted God to take care of us adequately, especially in times of suffering or struggle. It is comfortable for us rich westerners to believe that God loves us best, because we are rich, well-nourished and healthy. What else could our wealth and health indicate? Certainly the corrollary to that assumption is that if we are poor or sick, God doesn’t love us so much. Who would want to be associated with such a god? It doesn’t take a brilliant theologian to see the problem here. What I notice is that the same stuff happens to people who love God and to the people who ignore God. God actually treats everybody the same. When it rains, we all get wet and everybody’s garden grows.

So why pray at all? Probably different faiths will explain this differently. One of my good friends is a Buddhist and we often talk about the same things with completely different words. She talks about “tanglen” and I talk about “carrying the burdens of others”. In practice, they look the same. I can only use the vocabulary I know to explain this, so feel free to ask me what I mean. My main assumptions about prayer these days are
1). that God loves all of creation;
2). that God desires to make creation whole and healthy (and will succeed, no exceptions);
3). that suffering, while painful, is not an indication of God’s displeasure;
4). that God shares our suffering;
5). that God will help us learn to love others the same way God loves them.

When I pray now, I mostly stay quiet. It seems to me that the function of prayer is more about inviting God to shape my way of being so that I can also be one who loves all creation, who cooperates in the growth of wholeness and health, who can bear to be present to someone who is suffering. I also like to pray the Lord’s Prayer (or The Our Father). I used to just recite it (fast) as a rote prayer. Now I linger over the phrases: “Our Father…… the one who is everywhere and always present……may your name be held holy in all the earth…..may your way of doing things begin to happen here….just like they do in your immediate presence. Give us this day our daily bread ….. especially to those people who have no bread…. and make me generous to share with them…” and so on. When I do pray specifically for someone’s needs (Jesus instructed his followers to bring all their needs to God.) I’m more focused on God drawing their attention to God’s activity on their behalf than on trying to suggest a course of action for God. I believe that God can use any situation to help us grow in our love for others and for God. Often as I pray for them, I learn to love them better and I am sometimes moved to accompany them in some way.

What I’ve noticed in my years of church affiliation is that we mostly pray for things that seem out of our control. That’s why prayers for physical healing are so popular. I have seldom heard people pray for help with things they think they can manage on their own. Now I believe that one of the big lessons of prayer is that it is safe to give up the need for control. We, ultimately, cannot even control our next breath or heart beat. I’m learning that it is important to pray about things I think I do control and to admit, in front of God, that I really don’t know the best thing to do and to ask for help in seeing how my actions can be brought in line with God’s desire for loving and whole relationships on earth. How might prayers for the Super Bowl change if this were the motive of the prayer?

That’s all for now. I may come back with another thought or two.

I can’t wait until the Super Bowl, when the winning team will certainly have a few players thanking God for the victory. Because God not only cares who wins the Super Bowl, he plays a part in assisting the winning team to achieve that victory. Oh… and conversely… he hates the losing team… and wanted them to lose. And maybe even go to hell.

=AA=