On its face, prayer seems the most wasteful of activities. It comes perilously close to doing nothing. And it sometimes starts a conversation with a God that seems not to be there. And yet, modern-minded people galore welcome knowing more about prayer. Many of us are eager to grasp the insights of others into this practice. When it comes to praying, we all remain amateurs and need whatever help we can find.
Last week proved a fruitful one for me. It provided me with insightful words about prayer from two quite different women. I feel grateful to them for helping me along the path where light shines.
The first woman to offer me inspiration was a Bible scholar, Ellen Aitken. Based in Amherst, MA, she shares in my community what she has learned from her studies of Holy Scripture. On this occasion, she spoke to some fifty people gathered together for a church service.
“Prayer is, at its base, the habit of bringing everything to God, the whole of one’s life,” says this student of the Bible. To me, these words offer inspiration suggesting the benefits of making prayer a familiar activity, something one does every day. Habit is a way of making actions accessible and even comfortable.
What Professor Aitken says also points toward the content of prayer, what we can pray about. This part sounds simple: everything about us is material for conversation with God.
This same woman says that, when you pray, “You are gathering up all sorts of the pieces of life.” This makes prayer a remedy for the scatteredness felt by many people as we find themselves torn in several directions at once. This makes us crave becoming centered so that we can focus on something important instead of feeling poured out all the time.
Professor Aitken also sees in prayer a force expanding outwards: “Prayer leads to radical acts of compassion.” If it sometimes seems detached from real life, we are deceived. Genuine prayer contains the seed of actions that will express love for our neighbors. Talking with God impels us in the direction of feeling the pain of those God loves.
A second person who shone light on prayer for me is author Anne Lamott in her book “Traveling Mercies.” She often presents herself as rather a kooky person, full of weird and entertaining points of view, but at the same time spiritually insightful.
On a day she was struggling with what she calls an “ice-pick headache,” she turned to God in her distress. Of this experience, she writes: “But the way I see things, God loves you the same whether you’re being elegant or not. It feels much better when you are, but even when you can’t fake it, God still listens to your prayers.”
So it does not make any difference if you are having a good or bad hair or head day, you can still turn to God in prayer. God is always ready to start a conversation with us, no matter how harried we may be.
Then Anne Lamott goes on to say: “Again and again I tell God I need help, and God says, ‘Well, isn’t that fabulous? Because I need help too. So you go get that old woman over there some water, and I’ll figure out what we’re going to do about your stuff.’”
The familiarity with which the writer puts breezy words in God’s mouth can at first seem shocking. Such words may strike as irreverent those trained to use pious Sunday school language. But they flow from a woman accustomed to dealing intimately with God in prayer. With the freedom of friendship, she dares to write a script for God, giving him his speaking lines.
Notice also how the message echoes what Ellen Aitken, the biblical scholar, says about prayer leading to compassion. Anne Lamott puts it more concretely: it means relieving an old lady’s thirst by getting her a glass of water. But both agree that prayer overflows its apparent boundaries and issues in love of other people.
Ms. Lamott obviously has confidence about God answering prayer. It’s just a matter of priorities: service to the old woman, before God gets to Anne’s stuff. The word “stuff” suggests the mess that her life is frequently in. That does not make any difference to God; the important thing is she needs help so God is prepared to give it.
Richard Griffin