Prayer has never been my strong suit, but I talk to God a lot these days. Throughout my childhood I thought prayer had to be liturgical or some childish rhyming thing at the dinner table, and for the important stuff, definitely something lofty, weighty, and memorized, or read out of the Book of Common Prayer, vetted by those who know better so that it would be worthy of speaking to God.
I grew up Episcopalian and married a Southern Baptist. In church math, Episcopalian + Southern Baptist = either Presbyterian or Methodist. We’re not big on that whole predestination thing, so we joined the Methodist church. My husband grew up in a much more religious household than I did, and one of the things he learned was how to pray. I was startled the first several times we prayed together, at the way he seemed so comfortable with God, the way he spoke to Him as a friend—a lofty, revered friend, but not some far-removed authority figure. My prayers began to emulate his, and gradually, I’ve come to think of God as someone to talk with, not someone to whom I should throw a prepackaged speech with an “Amen” tacked on the end. But I still find myself guilty of that most common of practices, of being a fair-weather friend to God. Maybe it would be better to explain it as being a bad-weather friend to God. We all tend to do it, to ignore Him on the beautiful sunny days so that we can go out and avail ourselves of his bounty. But the minute something goes bad, we’re on our knees, begging Him to fix it, pleading with Him that if He will just do this one teensy thing this one time, we’ll never do X, Y, or especially Z again.
I’m guessing this is not His favorite form of communication, because it’s not communication at all when you just talk at somebody, when you never listen, and when you only come to them in time of need. I’ve tried to listen, but I’ve never heard a big booming voice, and no burning shrub has ever spoken to me, either. Sometimes I think God may be speaking to me, but it’s hard to know whether that’s my little Jiminy Cricket chirping or whether it really is the voice of the Lord. It always seemed to me that if God were to talk to you, it would not be something you could miss. But now I think we miss it all the time because we can’t or won’t listen properly. I’ve tried and tried to listen, and for someone who’s always been the consummate blabbermouth, it’s very difficult to shut up and quiet your mind enough to let God’s voice, however whispered, enter your head. Most of the time, I fall asleep.
Somewhere along the line, when life got busy, my prayers became complacent. I’d start to pray as I was drifting off to sleep, and all God got was “Dear Lord, thank you for this day and all the …..” Then my father’s health started to slide rapidly, and wham, there I was, back on my knees with the fervor of a nun. I didn’t know what to pray for. Obviously, I wanted my father to live, but not like he was—not in agony, unable to rise from a hospital bed. But could I really pray for him to die? Was that right?
In the end I ended up on my knees, chanting “Your will be done, your will be done,” over and over again.
There was a chapel in the hospital, a small, simple room, with rows of chairs and an ancient piano. There was a makeshift altar, and on it was a notebook, filled with anonymous letters to the Lord from people kneeling there while their loved ones lay dying in the rooms down the hall. Some were heartbreaking. Parents lost children, leaving their pain behind, palpable in the ink. Siblings wrote in broken English, praying to a God they may or may not have known, their words hesitant, their fear radiating from the unsteady chicken scratch in the low light.
Then there were others, the letters that saw joy through the pain, even through extreme suffering and death. Parents thanked God for the privilege of having their child in their lives, if even for a short time. Others thanked Him for merciful release of their loved ones, and managed to have their joy at the thought of Heaven radiate through their pain and loss.
When my father died, I was downstairs in the cafeteria with my sister. We had just ordered pancakes after spending a long night sleeping in the room with our father. We sat down at the table, and a nurse walked through the door and came to us. I knew what she was going to say before she opened her mouth.
“Oh, my God,” I said, as I read her face. “He just died, didn’t he?”
She nodded.
The first thing I did was look up, and I for once I didn’t have to labor over what to say.
“Thank you, God, oh, thank you.”
Later, I found myself at home alone in my childhood bedroom. I couldn’t get my husband on the phone, and the nap I was supposed to be taking wasn’t happening. Perhaps it was shock, or plain exhaustion, but I couldn’t think of what to say to God then. So I reached for the Lord’s Prayer. “Our Father…” I started, then stopped as it hit me.
Now I have two fathers in Heaven. I hope both of them can hear me when I pray.
Wow. Beautiful, heart-rending. Prayer is an amorphous thing. I think we all do it in different ways, at different times. When I pray well, I tell God the truth. But this isn't most of the time. Most of the time I don't do it that way. Most of the time, like you, I forget to pray or pray to manipulate God– as if God could be manipulated. The wonderful thing about believing in God, is knowing that God is ever-present whether we pray or not. It's our choice whether to plug in.
Angie, this is a beautiful statememt about prayer. Our liturgical prayers only help us to begin the process. They teach us some of the things we can pray about. But they always stop short. They must be completed in our hearts. More and more for me, in silence. There are far fewer words for me now, and not many requests. Mainly stillness, listening, letting thoughts emerge as they will, being willing to entertain the Holy if that should happen. I am fortunate to live on a beach now, and to have regular walks in the preternatural dawn and at the end of the day. Most of the time, especially during this season, it is just me and the sea birds, the pelicans and gulls. I imagine them as going back and forth between heaven and earth, as I so want to do. It seems so simple to them, just mounting an air current and going with the flow of air under their wings, mnaking effort when needed, but often just relaxing on the unseen but very present body of wind. So prayer has become for me a desire to be still, to experience God as pelicans experience wind, to be taken where I need to be. And today I was taken to you. What a treat! Everett
Angie, beautiful! Seriously brought tears to my eyes!!! I love your writing!