Thoughts on Prayer

OK, here is a subject-area where Angels fear to tread and I'm offering a few preliminary thoughts here on prayer for discussion. By no means do I think that I am an "expert" on prayer or that I have "right answers" about prayer.

My three thoughts for this morning are:

1) Pray as you can, not as you can't
2) Prayer, just do it
3) Prayer is not a vending machine, it's an exercise

Pray as you can, not as you can't.
Anyone who has attended Guy Chester Centre in the past will recognize this saying as taught by the beloved Sister Anne Marie Farrell. In fact, it's a saying that many regular practitioners of traditional Christian prayer disciplines will tell you.

Prayer is not an easy thing and there is no point in making it harder by getting a whole load of "shoulds" into your head about how prayer "should" be done. Some people are familiar with more contemplative prayer and they think that this sort of prayer just doesn't work for them because they hate silence and can't sit still for ten minutes. Others are more familiar with spoken verbal prayer and may think "Well, Fred the Local Preacher in my congregation is fantastic at praying out loud, but I get my tongue all tied up; I can't pray and won't ever be able to."

Each individual is going to have approaches to prayer that at different from others. There are a number of good books which give suggestions on various ways to pray to help you try out a few of them. Richard Foster's book called Prayer; Finding the Heart's True Home stands out as one of these. Some people find it easier to pray while walking, some find it easier with music, some with silence. Some pray out loud in their own room, some pray out loud with others, some pray silently with others.

There is no "Right Way" to pray and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I also find I pray differently in different situations. Sometimes I want to pray silently on my own. Sometimes I want to pray out loud with others. Neither way is better than the other.

2) Prayer, just do it
This is kind of a "bridge" point between points one and three.

Don't worry about your prayer technique. Just pray and try to pray regularly. Try various ways of praying until you begin to understand which ways work for you and which way you pray in different circumstances. For example, if I'm really in a crisis situation, I ideally want to be praying with others. That's not always possible, but I now know that this is my preferred way of praying in such a circumstance.

Also, like exercise, praying regularly is helpful but every little bit helps. Personally, I have found saying the Daily Office (there are many versions of this in books as well as on line) to be incredibly helpful in "just doing it". The Daily Office is especially helpful when you are distracted, sad or depressed. Rote prayer, in my view, is far from the vain praying that many more passionate Protestants claim it is. It's a way of showing up to be with God even if you don't feel like it.

Regular prayer, like regular exercise, is helpful and it all "accumulates". Which brings me to my third point:

3) Prayer is not a vending machine, it's an exercise
A lot of people have a lot of things to say about whether or not prayer "works". It seems to me that no matter what side of this argument you take, both sides seem to think of prayer as a vending machine. To be a bit absurd for the sake of making a point: "My friend's heart is failing and a transplant can't be found, so we're praying for a miracle cure for her heart and when it doesn't come we decide that our prayers to God have failed or not been heard."

Now, don't get me wrong, I do believe in miracles. I have personally seen someone delivered from an illness that was diagnosed as fatal; this middle-age person's cure/healing was incomprehensible to doctors, was apparently complete and came a few days before the person was supposed to die. However, I'm not actually expecting to see another miracle like that in my lifetime.

What I do think is that prayer can help us see the everyday miracles more clearly. Prayer helps us see key-hole appendectomies as miracles, new cancer treatments as miracles. But probably more importantly, prayer helps us recognize that the fact that we got up this morning is a miracle. That the fact I have a warm house and a roof over my head is a miracle. Prayer helps us see that the good Samaritan who just happened to have a can of petrol on that isolated road is a miracle and not a coincidence. And I don't think I'm down-playing the word "miracle" here.

Just like exercise helps make our physical muscles stronger, so too does prayer help make our spiritual muscles stronger.

What do you think?

New Year's Resolution

I don't usually make new year's resolutions but this year, I'm going to try to blog more than I did last year. And I'm going to try to blog on more topics of theology that I hope will be of interest to people and maybe even "relevant" to our lives as Christians.

I think I might end up re-blogging on some subjects that I've blogged about in the past. But one thing I've realized lately - from my experiences blogging and from my experiences in talking to people In Real Life - is that for various reasons we in the Church don't often get a chance to really hash out theological ideas that are important to us. So that's what I'm hoping to do a bit more of this year.

By the way, "theology" is simply "talk about God". It doesn't have to be high-fallutin'. I know that sometimes I use fancy words but I actually try not to do that for the most part. I usually try to translate fancy academic words of theology into "real English". And every person of faith "does theology" whether we think we do or not. When we ask questions like "What would Jesus do?" or "What would be a godly response to this situation?" we are asking theological questions.

I'll also be honest about another motivation. Since I'm not currently preaching, blogging can be a different way to "preach". In an ideal world, I'd rather see "preaching" as a dialogue between people rather than a monologue. And blogging is a much better venue for dialoging with others than most traditional Sunday services (although I frequently led services where discussions replaced sermons when I was leading worship).

So, my question to anyone who is reading is: What questions would you like to discuss here? What "God talk" subjects are of interest to you? I don't claim I'll have answers, but anyone who knows me knows that I can always add another question to the pile!

Swine Flu and Theological Reflection

The new Vice President of Methodist Conference, who is a GP (General Practitioner) by profession, has posted an excellent reflection on the subject of responding to swine flu

Here is a flavour:

There are though for Christians many ethical aspects to a flu pandemic that we should consider. In Britain we have a well developed health service, and enough money and forethought to buy large amounts of anti-viral medication and vaccine. This though means there is less or even none for those with less well developed plans or limited resources. Yet again the rich developed world will be able to protect its population at the expense of the poorer developing world.

Reflections on the eve of an inauguration

The article below will be going to the editor of a joint Methodist Church and Anglican parish magazine tomorrow morning (20 January 2009).  This article is not meant to be a 'spiritual reflection'. It is an attempt to reflect as a Christian on world events and to show that our Christian faith and values can be brought to bear on our 'real lives'. I'm happy to hear any comments you might have about the article itself. American readers might find some comments odd as they reflect some British ideas you might not recognise (one comment I'm hearing a lot is that 'Barack Obama is not really African-American because his mother is white'). Anyway, here is the article:

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I'm writing this article the day before Barack Obama is inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States. I hope that this reflection will be neither too political nor too much about the man himself but rather offer some ways that a Christian might reflect on world events. I ask you to indulge me as this article will not be what some would term 'spiritual'. However, as Christians we believe that God is everywhere and this means that we can use our values to reflect on the world around us as well as on our 'spiritual lives'.

I'll start by saying what you'll guess soon enough anyway: I'm very pleased that Barack Obama has been elected and I'm looking forward to returning to the United States under his Presidency in what promises to be a very challenging time for both the United States and the world.

This leads me to my first observation. President Obama has conducted an inspiring election campaign and he has captured the imagination of many Americans: African-Americans, Latino-Americans, younger Americans and Americans who are inspired by values of broad liberalism and tolerance. He has demonstrated that he is an exceedingly intelligent man who intends to appoint expert office-holders in key positions and he is an excellent communicator (dare I say 'preacher'?).

However, I hope that both America and the world remember that he is not the Messiah. Well, you'd expect a Christian minister to say that, wouldn't you? But actually, I'm serious. You already know the warnings in the bible not to put one's faith in Rome (the government, the established order, those who wield power) for salvation, so I will simply remind you of those warnings.

At a more down-to-earth level, no single man, no single government is going to be able to turn around the current world economic situation in one four-year Presidential term. It appears to me that our present age is still looking for quick fixes and short term solutions. I get the impression that we hope we've elected a Superman who bash all the bad-guys and make our problems go away. 'Patience' is one of the fruits of the Spirit and it seems to be something which society lacks these days. It is going to take patience and the diligent hard work of 'service' that Obama is calling for to change the current course of the world economy.

That leads me to my second observation. Pray for Obama's safety. I get the impression that some British people are bemused by worries surrounding the possibility of assassination, perhaps because British Prime Ministers do not tend to have threats made on their lives. I believe that there is a heightened possibility that attempts will be made on Obama's life. Not only by those who may be disappointed that there is no quick fix for current problems, but also because of the very powerful symbolism invested in being the first African-American President. (It doesn't matter that he's half white; any black heritage at all was grounds for discrimination in the past.)

This is my third observation: the powerful symbolism of being the first African-American President. As an American, I don't feel that I can fully communicate to British people just what a powerful symbol this is. I suspect that African-Americans feel that, as a white person, I can't grasp the full power of the symbol either.

As one weeping woman on television said, 'This is the first time in my life that I have real hope that my children can be anything they want to be.' Perhaps a Christian would say 'This is the first time in my life that I have real hope that my children can be what God created them to be.' As a Christian, can one do anything but weep to think that there have been - that there are still - people who know that they cannot fully be the person who God created them to be? And not just African-Americans, of course.

We too can identify people suffering similar injustices in our own town and country. We can, however, also thank God every time a barrier of discrimination falls because it is another defeat for the powers and principalities. And perhaps we can get a new insight into the Gospel - into what it meant to excluded people when Jesus recognised them as fully human and as beloved children of God. Perhaps we can get an insight into how we ourselves can be good news when we are able to see the full humanity in each individual.

My last observation is that of Barack Obama's call to 'service'. The day on which I write is not only the day before the election, it is also Martin Luther King day. A public holiday that was begun with the idea that people would set aside their daily work to perform voluntary service for others. I'm reminded of a black-and-white television clip that I saw many times when I was a child: John F. Kennedy saying 'Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.'

Such a sentiment does not have to be confined to one country, of course. I can very well imagine Jesus saying 'Ask not what your neighbour can do for you. Ask what you can do for your neighbour.' It is my hope and prayer that the election of Obama means more than the election of a capable, intelligent African-American individual to the Office of President of the United States. I hope that the American people have also seen a vision of putting others first and that we have 'elected' to change our values from self-interest to service, from racism to full human dignity for all people and from quick fixes to diligent hard work.