2. Why bother to think about prayer?
Those of us who spend a lot of time hanging around churches may easily
forget just how odd religion must seem to anyone who never goes near
one. Many of the people who turn up for baptisms, weddings or funerals
look extremely uncomfortable, just as we would if we were in what
seemed an alien environment. And perhaps the oddest thing of all in
the service is when people close their eyes and pray. What are they
actually doing?
It might seem to someone who just happened to wander into a church
during the prayers, that here was a group of people who had taken
leave of their senses. And this shows just what an odd thing prayer
actually is. It appears to be one side of a conversation (sometimes
out loud, sometimes silently) with an invisible person, whose replies
(if any) are inaudible. We’ve all come across people who wander along
the street talking to no-one in particular, and find such a spectacle
very sad. But this must be how we all look when we’re praying!
Young children tend to join in with what the grownups do, and may
quite happily copy their parents if they are in the habit of praying.
The children put their hands together, close their eyes, and say the
appropriate words. But what’s going on inside their heads when they do
this? Do they think they’re talking to someone like the Invisible Man?
Or perhaps it’s someone like Father Christmas, who although obviously
not invisible (we’ve seen enough pictures of him to know that!) is
nevertheless so far away that communication has to be rather different
from normal. Perhaps God is thought of as a Father Christmas figure
with very acute hearing - so acute, in fact, that he can hear even
when the prayers are only thought rather than said? It’s all very
mysterious - but then prayer is very mysterious. And it’s also very
troubling, in that lots of churchgoers feel like failures because they
find prayer hard. Probably the main reason for this difficulty is that
they wonder whether anything is actually happening when they pray. Or
are they simply talking to themselves?
The way you understand prayer depends to a large extent on the way you
understand God. If you are a ‘theist’ (someone who thinks of God as a
separate being, existing in some sense independently of the world)
then you’ll probably think of prayer as a sort of conversation. If you
are a ‘non-theist (someone who thinks of God in a very different way -
perhaps as the ‘Ground of our Being’, or as the ‘sum of our values’,
or as the creative and healing power of love) then prayer will be more
like an exploration into the Mystery at the heart of human life.
Sometimes a distinction is drawn between prayer and meditation, with
the former being thought of as talking to someone else, whilst the
latter is talking to oneself. But unless someone is a theist, there’s
no need to try and distinguish between them, and it’s probably better
not to. Many non-churchgoers may find the idea that prayer does not
have to be thought of as an internal conversation with an external but
invisible person to be puzzling, whilst many churchgoers may find the
suggestion positively offensive. But there will be many others, both
inside and outside the churches, who may find such an idea supremely
liberating, because they can make no sense of the idea of such a
Being.
Someone we know may be desperately ill, and seems beyond medical help.
The natural response of many people (even if religion normally plays
no part whatsoever in their lives) is to pray that they will get
better. It’s a common response, and a campaign of prayer may be
undertaken, with lots of people focusing on the needs of this
particular sufferer – but there’s something worrying about doing this
if it’s the theistic God that is being prayed to. It seems to be
assumed that such a God needs not only to be alerted to the needs of
people, but also begged, coaxed and pleaded with if he is to do
something about their problems. What sort of God would only make
people better if and when enough other people asked hard enough? And
what would it say about the infinite value of each and every person?
The idea of a God who has favourites is disgusting - but hardly
surprising given that much of the language we use about God is
the same as that used of emperors and kings. It’s the language of
grovelling and cringing, and shows that we are still in thrall to the
view of God as a fearful tyrant who needed to be placated by all sorts
of ‘offerings’, in the form of animal (perhaps even human?) sacrifices
that is found in much of the Old Testament. Many people can no longer
take such an idea seriously, just as many can no longer take seriously
the idea of a social hierarchy. Fewer and fewer are able to use,
unselfconsciously, titles such as ‘My Lord’ or ‘Your Worship’ or ‘Your
Majesty’ or ‘Your Excellency’, and this means that continuing to
address God in this way helps to make religion in general (and prayer
in particular) impossible for them.
It doesn’t have to be like this! If I pray that someone who is very
ill may recover, and they do, I can say my prayer has been answered.
They might have got better anyway, of course, but the important thing
is that the outcome I wanted so desperately has come about. Such
prayer is an expression of deep feeling, and its ‘answering’ occasions
an expression of deep gratitude. To pray is to express our most
profound longings.
To be continually awe-struck by the world is to pray, in that it helps
our souls to fly. To be aware of our failings is to pray, in that it
helps our souls to grow. To be thankful is to pray, in that it helps
our souls to shine. None of these attempt to change the world, and
none depend on the idea of an interventionist God. All of them reflect
the fact that we have spiritual needs which only prayer can satisfy.
To think of prayer solely (or even mainly) in terms of a shopping list
is desperate, not least because it’s so widespread. Prayer is nothing
less than the foundation of the spiritual life, and we need therefore
to ‘pray without ceasing’, as St Paul put it, with such reflection
being as natural as breathing - and almost as important!
Tony Windross, Vicar of St Peter's, Sheringham.
Why bother
A fuller treatment of this topic, plus 36 others, can be found in ‘The Thoughtful Guide to Faith’
also written by Tony Windross, published by John Hunt (2004) and available from all good bookshops at £9-99.