Friday Five: Prayer of Silence (or not)

At the beginning of this past week, I attended a conference on contemplative prayer entitled "Turning to the Mystics" at the 2013 Summer Institute at the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX. The speakers were James Finley, author and former novice of Thomas Merton; Mirabai Starr, author, translator, and speaker; and Father Ronald Rolheiser, author and president of OST. We were encouraged to regularly sit in quiet to come to realize our union with the Divine, who continually loves us into being.

So for this Friday Five, let us share about our prayer practices, whether silent or not:

1. How do you pray?

2. How has your idea of prayer changed over time?

3. Do you ever sit in silent prayer? How does it go?

4. Do you have any difficulties and/or pleasures in prayer?

5. What is the best advice that helped you with prayer?

Bonus: Share something about prayer or an example of a prayer you like.

Looking forward to reading about prayer. Leave a link in the comments section below. Go here to learn how to do this.

Thursday Prayer

Your silence is full, irresistible;
your presence is joy unspeakable.
People drifting into mind
we lift to you and pray they find
health in sickness,
life in deadness,
strength in weakness,
light in darkness.
Their loss you bear, mysteriously;
Your peace you share, eternally.

~Anglican Church of Kenya, Our Modern Services (Nairobi: Uzima Press, 2002), p15

Monday Prayer: Ravensbruck Prayer

O Lord, remember not only the men and women of good will, but also those of ill will. But do not remember all the suffering they have inflicted on us; remember the fruits we have bought, thanks to this suffering- our comradeship, our loyalty, our courage, our generosity, the greatness of heart which has grown out of all this, and when they come to judgment let all the fruits which we have borne be their forgiveness. 

Anonymous



Prayer written by an unknown prisoner in the Ravensbruck concentration camp. 

Ask the Matriarch: Writing Prayers

Today’s question comes from a pastor who writes her own prayers. One of her questions is about working with someone who may not share the same theology and assumptions about prayer. She also would like to hear from others who write their own prayers.

Dear matriarchs, 

I am an intern-minister at a small congregation in Vancouver Island in Canada.

I've recently found out that when I write prayers myself for each Sunday worship, especially Call to Worship and Opening Prayer (or Prayer of the Day), it can really touch people's heart and communicate something greater than when I borrow someone else's very well-done prayers. 

I think it may be mainly because my own prayer contains the element of locality, the congregation's emerging issue and the day or the week's concerns and shows a kind of common spiritual culture or landscape we share as a congregation.

English is my second language, so I am helped by a congregant's volunteer in editing. Sometimes I find that she may misunderstand and may not always fully reflect what I originally intended to say. Her understanding of prayers may be different from mine, and so our theologies are. But I begin to be convinced, nevertheless, that I receive and share great benefits if I keep writing my own prayers for each Sunday worship service. I got very good responses, sometimes. I am very glad to discover that this practice is very rewarding and great. It helps me redefine and refine my spirituality, theology and languages; but at the same time it does take time, leading me to wrestle with languages, of course more time than native English speakers would need.

I'd like to ask seasoned ministers and worship leaders who write prayers for each Sunday worship about what is the greatest strength they have found with this practice and about whether they would recommend this practice, no matter what. If yes, then I'd really like to hear why.  

Dear matriarchs, would you like to help me to get some responses from this wonderful circle of sharing wisdom. 

Blessings.   

Several matriarchs responded that they didn't have advice this time because they don’t often write their own prayers for public worship.  Here are two thoughtful responses from RevGal matriarchs who offer encouragement from their experience in writing worship prayers.  

Rev. Red offers this advice:

Your questions have taken me on a journey back to the beginning of my pastoral ministry.  One of my fears as I started out was that my prayers would not be "good enough".  Some weeks I spent more time writing my prayers than I spent on my sermon.Writing the prayers also helps me focus my sermon when I was having a hard time developing it's thesis.  The result was and has been that my prayers have ended up being a strong part of my ministry.  I often have people, both men and women, comment that my prayers touch them because of the language and images they use as well as their relevance to the current moment. I no longer spend as long writing my own prayers and other liturgical elements as I did at the beginning of my ministry, but the time spent then helps me today. I have both overcome my fear and also built a strong spiritual base and language for those times when I am asked to pray with little or no advance notice.   I believe that writing our own prayers and liturgy do help us to reflect theologically and frame the whole worship service with them.  I hope that you will continue to take time to write prayers and liturgy.  I know that it will bless you both now and in the future.

Shalom,  Rev Red

Jennifer also writes her own prayers:

Good for you for adopting the practice and the discipline of writing prayers and having them translated!  That’s amazing and wonderful! What a gift to your congregation!  To be sure, it is also a time-consuming process, and it sounds like it’s worth it.

It sounds like your translator may be offering some interpretation in addition to translating. I wonder if that’s a conversation to have with your volunteer. It may lead to a closer translation and to the intended words.

I’m a writer of my own prayers, too, and I encourage others, when they are joining in worship leadership to consider writing or praying their own prayers. I think there’s something special about hearing an authentic voice, and as you mention, the references to what’s going on in a community’s life.

Would I recommend it? Of course!!  Would I recommend it, no matter what?  I think the next best thing is to adapt the prayer of another, still striving to offer words that seem natural and authentic from the one leading the prayer. I’d be sure to give credit for such in the bulletin.

Whatever your practice around prayers and liturgy, I’m sure that the practice of preaching in a second language is arduous, too. May it all continue to go well for you and the congregation you serve.

Jennifer

anorientationofheart.blogspot.com

Thank you, Rev Red and Jennifer!

Do you write your own prayers?  What advice can you offer the rest of us who might like to?

And, do you have any experience with “mistranslation” or unfortunate editing?

Please let us hear from you in the comments!

RevGalBookPals: Help Thanks Wow

It's the end of the year and most of us are pretty tired. Between Christ the King (or Reign of Christ) Sunday and Christmas Day, we have a marathon of services, hurdles of tradition versus new ideas, and a juggernaut of music, readings, plays, parties, and sermons. Panting, we come skidding into the Epiphany- hoping for a nap, inspiration, and a dearth of pastoral calls- in no particular order.

In all this, did you remember to pray?

Perhaps you did. Deep heartfelt prayers and quiet meditations. Rushed words tumbling out of your mouth in between activities. Memorized stanzas comfortable, familiar and consoling. Muttered phrases just upon waking and just before falling asleep. I hope that you got a few prayers in, but I trust that God heard all the prayers of our hearts and minds.

Knowing our need for rest and our need for prayer, I commend to you the very brief new work from Anne Lamott on prayer: Help, Thanks, Wow. (Lamott on Facebook and Twitter) The hardback edition has 102 slim pages and, like most of Lamott's writing, it goes down like your favorite food that also happens to be good for you (high in fiber or protein or what-have-you).

There is little research here on the history of prayer or the orans posture or even prayers of the Bible or other holy writings. Instead, Lamott ponders her own history in prayer- her way of communicating with God. She exposes her own soft underbelly by telling of how she speaks to God in the depth of pain, in great joy, and in times of deep need. In so doing, she draws the reader into a conversation about the reality of what prayer is and how it happens, rather than instructing on what prayer should "be".

Lamott writes:

God can handle honesty, and prayer begins an honest conversations. My belief is that when you're telling the truth, you're close to GOd. If you say to God, "I am exhausted and depressed beyond words, and I don't like You at all right now, and I recoil from most people who believe in You," that might be the most honest thing you've ever said. If you told me you had said to God, "It is all hopeless and I don't have a clue if You exist, but I could use a hand," it would bring tears to my eye, tears of pride in your, for the courage it takes to get real- really real. It would make me want to sit next to you at the dinner table. So prayer is our sometimes real selves trying to communicate with the Real, with Truth, with the Light.  (7) 

While many of us allow ourselves some realness in our own prayer lives, how do we communicate the power of truth-in-self-in-prayer to our parishioners and congregants? In our encouragement toward fullness in prayer lives (in prayer lives at all), what are the ways you've encouraged people toward honesty with God? It is not as though God does not know what we are feeling and thinking. However, for many- the utterance of despair and frustration and truly asking for help is a step too far out to be certain of one's footing. Yet, doesn't faith require some honesty? Shouldn't it promote the same?

Lamott describes three types of prayer: 1) help, 2) thanks, and 3) wow. In each section, she not only gives examples of her own experiences with these prayers, but also their presence in the lives of those around her. She details how expansive they may be and the honesty in their brevity as well.

On "help", Lamott says:

[W]hen we stop trying to heal our own sick, stressed minds... when we are truly at the end of our rope and just done, we say the same prayer. We say, "Help." We say, Help, this is really all too much, or I am going slowly crazy, or I can't do this, or I can't stop doing this, or I can't feel anything. Or, Help, he is going to leave me, or I have no life, or I hate the one I've created, or I forgot to have a life, or I forgot to pay attention as it scrolled by. Or even, Help, I hate her so much and one of my parents is dying- or will never die. Unfortunately, we haven't gotten to the big-ticket items yet: cancer, financial ruin, lost children, incontinence. (29)

We do often utter the most sincere prayers in flashes of grief, joy, and desperation. We know them to be true and we believe them to be heard. This is the gift of prayer- that it is not about getting it right, but getting it heard- getting it said- getting it out- and getting it to God. Our praying (or not) does not inhibit or permit God's own action in a given circumstance, but the act of praying does open us more to seeing the Holy Spirit, to releasing some of what holds us back, to being honest with ourselves, and thus more able to feel God's presence with us.

This tiny book makes a good conversation starter for any group or person in the difference between how we think we should pray and what we actually do. Possibilities for its use include a Lenten study, a book group, a spiritual counseling tool, or just a breather read between Christmas and Epiphany- little prayer primer in the time of Great Light. I do recommend this book to you. It's quick, but you'll find yourself thinking it over, returning to it, and (probably) quoting parts of it to yourself and to others. For Lamott's thoughtful work, I pray, "Thanks and wow."





Lamott, Anne. Help Thanks Wow. Penguin Group; NY, NY. 2012.