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This week: What Is Prayer? Edited by: Sophurky  
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Hi, I'm Sophurky ~ your editor for this edition of the Spiritual Newsletter. This week we'll consider prayer, as both a spiritual and writing exercise.
The Rev. Scotty McLennan, author of the book Finding Your Religion, compares humanity's innate need for spiritual searching to climbing a mountain. In his view, we are all endeavoring to climb the same figurative mountain in our search for the divine, we just may take different ways to get there. In other words, there is one "God," but many paths. I honor whatever path or paths you have chosen to climb that mountain in your quest for the Sacred.  |
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What IS Prayer?
I Happened to Be Standing, by Mary Oliver
I don’t know where prayers go,
or what they do.
Do cats pray, while they sleep
half-asleep in the sun?
Does the opossum pray as it
crosses the street?
The sunflowers? The old black oak
growing older every year?
I know I can walk through the world,
along the shore or under the trees,
with my mind filled with things
of little importance, in full
self-attendance. A condition I can’t really
call being alive.
Is a prayer a gift, or a petition,
or does it matter?
The sunflowers blaze, maybe that’s their way.
Maybe the cats are sound asleep. Maybe not.
While I was thinking this I happened to be standing
just outside my door, with my notebook open,
which is the way I begin every morning.
Then a wren in the privet began to sing.
He was positively drenched in enthusiasm,
I don’t know why. And yet, why not.
I wouldn’t persuade you from whatever you believe
or whatever you don’t. That’s your business.
But I thought, of the wren’s singing, what could this be
if it isn’t a prayer?
So I just listened, my pen in the air.
*******************************************************
I've been thinking about prayer lately. It came to mind for me when I participated in a "review of the minutes" of the church to which I belong, where representatives from area congregations read over and either "approve" as correct, or "disapprove" with comment our minutes of church board meetings for the past year. It's a rather silly thing, in my opinion, but it is done diligently and with great dedication by some members of our denomination. And it's required, so we took part as we always do.
One of the many rules that govern our denomination is that all meetings of our church board of directors are opened and closed with prayer. Our congregation's board meetings begin with a spiritual reflection offered by one of our members, though occasionally we offer a more traditional prayer. We tend to conclude our meetings with some sort of a blessing or a cheer for getting all of our work accomplished. Whatever it is we do, we record it in the minutes as required. As the nice woman from another congregation was checking our minutes to verify that we do in fact open and close our meetings with prayer, she struggled a bit as she pointed to the minutes from January, which read: “Meeting called to order at 6:33pm with the e.e. cummings poem, 'I am a little church' read by the Chair.”
“Did you open with prayer?” she asked. We told her that yes, our opening prayer was the poem. She turned to February, hoping to find the simple sentence, “Meeting opened with prayer.” Instead she found: “Chair called the meeting to order at 6:30pm, inviting Pam to reflect on her effective teamwork and team leadership experience with a church renovation project. She inspired us all, commenting on motivation, adaptation, and ‘gettin’ ‘er done.’” The poor woman reviewing our minutes was crestfallen. Fortunately she found what she wanted in May, sort of. “Meeting began at 6:30pm with two moments of reflection: Susan read a prayer, ‘Peace! Be Still!’ for those affected by the tornadoes in Oklahoma, and Dave played us a song he had written in a watershed moment, its lyrics based on our mission statement.” She thankfully crossed the prayer requirement off her list and moved on.
All of this got me thinking about prayer – what it is, what it isn’t, and who or what makes that determination. Clearly the woman from the other church did not consider the reading of an e.e. cummings poem (even if it was about a church) or an inspirational testimonial about motivation and teamwork to be prayer. The reading of a prayer for tornado victims in May was more to her liking, which got me thinking about what constitutes an actual prayer? What is prayer? What isn’t prayer? Is there a definitive answer or is prayer in the eye of the beholder, so to speak? For instance, I’m quite sure the chaplain who visited Mr. Sophy in the hospital this past August, sat on his bed (while Mr. Sophy sat nearby in a chair for the first time post-surgery), interviewed him about why he was in there, and then closed the visit with an uninvited petition to God for healing, would consider that he and Mr. Sophy shared a prayer experience. Mr. Sophy, on the other hand, did not welcome the intrusion less than 24 hours after major surgery, was worried about where the man had last been sitting due to concerns about MRSA, and did not appreciate or participate in the unasked for and impersonal “prayer.” So was it prayer? Certainly for the chaplain it was, even though it wasn’t for Mr. Sophy. So I suppose what is and isn’t prayer is based on individual perception, and not on a homogeneous formula.
My understanding and practice of prayer has evolved throughout my life. I resonate with what Nancy Rockwell writes: “Prayer is what we do with our whole lives when we pay attention beyond ourselves. Reaping the fields is prayer, and running through leaves; reading a book is prayer, and removing a tumor; giving birth is prayer, any kind of birth – an idea, a song, a book, a child. The heartfelt work of giving our goodwill, to a child, a stranger, or a broken soul, is prayer. If we recognize that all of life is prayer – all of life is Eucharist – we may see our hunger and thirst for God as part of our being – in God we live and move and have our being, St. Paul wrote. Prayer is continual, varied, without beginning or end.” Sufi master Bawa would agree: “For those who have come to know God, the whole world is a prayer mat.” As would Coleman Barks, a poet, who writes: ‘Like a waterwheel that ceaselessly catches water out of a stream and spills it into a garden, [p]rayer lifts us up again and again out of our preoccupations and sets us into a sacred time.’
Mary Oliver poems feel like prayer to me – like when she says in the poem, A Summer Day, “I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day.” Contemplative silence also feels like prayer to me, as does comforting a friend who’s suffering, playing with my dog Daisy, taking a walk, doing a good deed, and swimming laps in the warm pool at our gym. What do you consider to be prayer? What are some of the ways you pray? I’ll close with another Mary Oliver poem and then invite you to respond in the comments about the different ways you pray so that we can be inspired by one another.
Praying by Mary Oliver
It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.
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Now for some comments about my last newsletter "Spiritual Newsletter (October 16, 2013)" about Joy:
From elaineesme
Thank you for highlighting my story in your newsletter. Joy is one of my favorite topics. I believe it springs from love, love for God and for others. It is very rare that I don't have some joy, even in the midst of trials. I thank the Lord for that gift because it isn't something I can drum up or determine to have, it is a gift from him. So, I smile at his reminders of things to be joyful for, my family, my friends, those who truly love me, a beautiful blossom, a visit from a little bird, the beautiful sky.... all remind me of God and the reason I have to be joyful. Sometimes that joy swells in my heart as tears are flowing but it is always there.
Thank you for writing a lovely newsletter. :)
Blessings,
Elaine
Thank you so much for sharing your lovely words, so glad you enjoyed the newsletter.
    
From Quick-Quill 
I saw the video too, a while back. She got so distracted. What impressed me the most was Dad's calm guidence back to the song. She is adorable! This is how God helps us. Gently distracting us and guiding us (if we let him) back to the middle of the road. Away from cares, distractions and worries that would take our minds off the goal.
Thanks so much for sharing!
From ber-brag 
Hi Sophie,
Thanks for this wonderful newsletter on "joy" and special thanks for the video. I am sharing it on my fb wall.
God Bless and Have a nice day
Prayers for joy and happiness
Agnelo
And same to you, thank you.
Please keep your comments and suggestions coming! Until next time! Sophurky |
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Spiritual: November 13, 2013 Issue [#5987]
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