"Why I Pray"

Religious liberals have sought diligently for years

        to find fresh and relevant definitions of prayer.

Bishop John Shelby Spong makes a passionate appeal in his book

        for prayer as the exercise of an authentic life.

"Prayer is what I am doing," he writes,

        "when I live wastefully, 

                passionately, and wondrously 

                        and invite others to do so with me

                                or even because of me."

 

More practical, perhaps, is the definition we find in our covenant:

        "Love is the doctrine of this church.

                The quest of truth is its sacrament,

                        and service is its prayer."

This perspective is consistent with the Unitarian Universalist emphasis 

        on deeds, not creeds,

                as the standard of the good life.

We are at our best when we are acting on our principles.

 

The liberal religious understanding of prayer 

        as authentic living or service to others

                is an honest attempt to recast traditional religious forms

                        in the terms of contemporary experience.

We do not offer prayers 

        "by storming the gates of heaven,"

                nor do we imagine our God as residing there.

For Bishop Spong,

        prayer is the here and now experience of coming fully alive.

"There is only the call to be open to the depths of life," 

        he writes,

                "and to live in such a way as to reveal those depths."

 

Bishop Spong writes,

        "I do not believe that there is a being,

                a supernatural deity,

                        standing over against my world

                                who seeks through some invasive process 

                                        to imprint the divine will on the life of my world.

The deity I worship," he adds,

        "is rather part of who I am individually and corporately...

                God is the presence in whom my being comes alive."

I do not believe in a supernatural deity either.

I’m not pinning my hopes on the "everlasting arms"

        that may or may not be waiting to catch me when I fall.

 

But like Bishop Spong, I do have a sense of God,

        not the God of theism or the bible,

                but a sense of something holy,

                        which I still seek, however tentatively, 

                                to be part of my life.

And prayer is my appeal to that God 

        or that "something holy"

                to enter my life and even to change it.

This is the culmination, 

        if you can call it that,

                of the years I have spent 

                        contemplating, rejecting and revising my image of God.

As those of you who have children are frequently reminded,

        this thinking starts early in all of us.

When I was very young, 

        I had many fervent religious interests

                and tried everything from devotional rituals

                        to giving up listening to my transistor radio for Lent,

                                as a way of seeking God.

My parents tolerated my preoccupations

        with good humor and little comprehension.

 

I asked my father if he believed in God.

"I worship Apollo," he told me,

        and then directed me to read all of Bulfinch's Mythology.

They were good Unitarian Universalist parents,

        but they tried too hard to intellectualize religion

                and left me looking on my own 

                        for spiritual experiences.

They think that is why I became a minister.

 

My childhood image of God as the object of devotion

        soon gave way to God as an intellectual exercise

                when I studied philosophy in college.

There is nothing quite as effective for losing faith in God

        as studying proofs of His existence!

Once I made it to Hegel and then on to Marx, 

        Heidegger and the existentialists,

                I never looked back.

I became convinced that the human enterprise was tragic,

        that the only authentic state was anxiety,

                and we could save ourselves

                        only by facing up to this bleak reality.

After a while, I cheered up,

        and wondered whether God might have something to do

                with life not always being tragic

                        and occasionally offering some relief instead of dread.

Whatever this glimmer of hope and transcendence might be, 

        I was willing to call it God,

                and today I still do.

It's just a glimmer,

        but the light stays on.

 

My sense of God has changed throughout my life,

        as I imagine it has for you,

                and yet something I’ve noticed

                        is that my use of prayer has hardly changed at all.

I admire the liberal religious view of prayer 

        as service,

                or social action,

                        or celebration,

                                or any of the ways in which 

                                        we are at our best,

                                                                but that's not how I pray.

I don't pray often.

But when I do,

        it's because I'm desperate.

 

I want to tell you about this,

        because sometimes these prayers,

                desperate though they may have been,

                        have changed my life.

Not because they were answered 

        in any obvious way.

Not because the universe offered me any signs

        to confirm that I was going in the right direction.

Not because of anything outside myself, actually –

        but because of something inside,

                something that allowed me to open up,

                        or to change,

                                or to move on

                                        in ways I desperately needed to do.

 

I have prayed for sleep.

I have prayed for forgiveness.

I have prayed when I've had it with my perfectionism

        and need help with acceptance.

I have prayed for healing.

I have prayed for people I know who are suffering.

I have prayed by hospital bedsides 

when there is nothing left to say.

And I have prayed 

        when I feel cut off from the spirit of life,

                when I feel trapped,

                        no longer in touch with my own true self.

 

Our story for the children this morning

        was a mystical narrative in which the Maasai Man

                sings to the spirits of the animals caged in the zoo.

They get a glimmering of something 

        that reminds them of who they really are,

                and they don't feel sad and trapped anymore.

When they remember their own true selves,

        they feel free.

 

Prayer is like the song of the Maasai man.      

It can rekindle the awareness of who we really are,

        and remind us of the spirit within. 

We can turn to it when we feel trapped too,

        held back by our own limitations and weaknesses,

                or frustrated by the constraints our lives have imposed on us,

                        or when we have nowhere else to turn.

 

The best advice anyone ever gave me about prayer was this:

        just ask for what you want.

Just ask: 

        not because you will receive,

                but because there is hope and healing

                        in naming what you want.

There is hope and healing in the truth,

        whatever the outcome you seek.

 

Mary Oliver writes,

        "[And] if your spirit carries within it

                the thorn that is heavier than lead –

                        if it’s all you can do to keep on trudging –

                                there is still somewhere deep within you

                                        a beast shouting that the earth

                                                is exactly what it wanted …"

These words are for those of us who have felt the pain

        of not being exactly who we wanted to be;

                and for those who have had to hoist the heavier burdens of life:

                        illness, disappointment, loss;

                                and also for those of us whose personal struggles

                                        are mundane but no less tragic or impenetrable.

For any of us, the thorn can become heavier than lead at any time.      

When it does,

        there is still the beast deep within,

                still shouting,

                        still living in the spirit 

                                of what is light, natural and free.

That is where prayer can lead,

        if we let it take us there.

 

Prayer is primitive and fundamental.

It is the naked recognition of who we are 

        and what we want.

Prayer is speaking the truth to ourselves,

        not always an easy thing to do.

We express ourselves in our most vulnerable state.

Perhaps that is why people have sent their prayers to heaven:

        far away,

                safely out of reach.

 

But what we need is what can reach us:

        to sense the spirit within,

                and know the truth of ourselves.

The truth is what can reach us.

Prayer is letting it find us.

Once we know the truth,

        we are free to change and grow

                and find what we are seeking in life.

 

We religious liberals are skeptical about prayer

        because we reject the materialism 

                of asking for something we want,

                        and we lack the belief in a supernatural agent to provide it.

But asking for what we need,

        whether that is the strength to change and grow,

                or the courage to face our fears,

                        or the willingness to move closer to others –

                                asking is the first step

                                        towards finding what we need,

                                                and becoming the agents 

                                                        of our own true selves.

In this sense, we pray to the spirit within us

        that helps us to move in the direction we desire.

As Bishop Spong says,

        "There is no magic here!"

There may even be no God here,

        just the human yearning to live honestly

                and to be true to oneself.

 

I still pray to God, 

        because if I need to pray badly enough,

                I don't have time to define and qualify what I mean.

But if I were to define and qualify what I mean,

        I would say that God is the spirit at the center of life

                in which I place my trust and my vulnerability.

Something like that.

Bishop Spong's definition works well too:

        "God is the presence in whom my being comes alive."

 

But you don't need God to pray.

You only need your true self,

        and a willingness to open your true self

                to your deepest yearnings, hopes and fears.

Whatever you have is enough.

I also want to tell you my one other belief about prayer.

When my prayers are answered,

        I give thanks.

I try never to forget to give thanks.

It may be some imaginary transaction going on in my head,

        but it does not feel complete to me

                until I have acknowledged my gratitude

                        for whatever I have received.

Perhaps I'm relieved 

        that whatever crisis provoked the prayer is over.

Or I realize one day

        that something has changed in me

                and that I have grown in some way I really needed to do.

Or I think about my life and feel grateful.

I give thanks.

And then I move on, 

        no longer as heavy as lead,

                more in touch with my true self,

                        knowing, at least for that moment,

                                that something holy goes with me too

                                        and is never too far away. 

Sources:
"The Spirit of the Maasai Man," by Laura Berkeley (New York: Barefoot Books, 2000)
"Why Christianity Must Change or Die," by John Shelby Spong (New York:HarperCollins Publishers, 1998).