What is Prayer

Words for the Chalice Lighting

The Religious Humanist’s 23rd Psalm
by The Reverend Charles Donald Saleska

Life itself is my guide
I shall not be denied its sustaining power.
The green earth provides me with lavish nourishment;
Cool still pools of water refresh my spirit.
A deep intuition leads me along a path that is true
for the sake of existence itself.

Even though I walk through a valley where dark shadows
prevent me from knowing where life
finally leads in death,
ultimately I will not fear,
For the energy of the universe is within me.

The tools by which I am kept from wandering
off into despair,
They are a comfort to me.

Even in the face of threats to my well-being
and my very life,
The spirit of life nourishes me,
honors me with its presence,
and reminds me that I really
have more than I need.

Surely goodness and kindness
radiate upon me constantly,
and I shall dwell within this universe
with its transforming processes, forever.

The Sermon:

How many of you think prayer is the way we ask God, or the universe, or whatever/whomever our Higher Power is, to do something for us?  Many of us were told or have heard that if you want something then go and pray about it…

How often do you do that?  How often do you ask your Higher Power to fulfill a need or a desire that you have? 

Do you pray every day?  ….several times a day? …or do you only use prayer when nothing else is working?  …when you’ve tried everything else?

How often do you get what you pray for?

Has the “rate of return” been good?  Or has it been poor, but you keep on trying? 

A dozen years ago, when I was learning to be a generic chaplain in a large hospital with a busy trauma center, part of what I did was pray with patients and families and sometimes the staff.  A lot of praying goes on in a trauma center, in an emergency room, in a hospital…

I am sure a lot of praying happens wherever and whenever human beings feel that things have gotten out of control and they need some “outside” help to get back to normal.

It took some getting used to for me to pray as often as I did in that chaplaincy program a dozen years ago.

Long before that, probably when I was a teenager, I had concluded that there wasn’t much relationship between praying and actually receiving what I was asking for.  So, way before this chaplaincy year, I had stopped asking God to do this or do that… because the magic of that kind of prayer wasn’t working for me.

I found what I thought was a good reason not to pray. 

Eventually, I realized that prayer was not always about asking… 

Sometimes I would find myself just saying thanks, or expressing gratitude, to the universe.  “Thank you for all that I have been given….all that I have received that I didn’t ask for, that I maybe don’t even deserve, yet I have!”

Sometimes when we get what we didn’t ask for, didn’t expect (and it’s a good thing), it we have received grace.  And we say grace!   We say thank you.  That’s a prayer.

It was the prayers of gratitude, the acknowledgements of grace; that I heard from others and sometimes from my lips, in that trauma center, in that hospital, that helped me to learn to appreciate prayer…

There have been times though, when I have received what has felt to me like grace, when I have also been keenly aware that others have not received such privilege.   I can feel really uncomfortable expressing my gratitude for having been spared from some disaster that has befallen others.  My mind starts to wonder about what kind of God would “save” me from an untimely death or terrible suffering but not the person that seems to have been just as worthy of saving.  

Yet, I say thank you, anyway. 

I can and I have found reasons not to pray….  But I do anyway…

As I have gotten older, as I have become more and more aware that hate, disasters and suffering, my own and others have not stopped, and I am more and more aware of what a privileged life I live….I find myself praying more and more… a combo platter of thanks and "please do more."  And, I care less and less about to whom or to what I am praying.

When I feel despair, or loneliness, or helplessness, or when I feel joy, or gratitude or awe, when beauty or a sense of solidarity with others moving towards the same vision of the beloved community as I am overwhelms me…when I think those I care about would want me to, I pray….

Sometimes, especially in private, my prayer is just a big “why?”  

Why has this or that happened?  Why me?  Why that person?  Why us?  Why now?  How could you?  Why is life so painful sometimes?  Why haven’t centuries of prayer made a difference?   Where are you?

In those times, when I pray "why", I am NOT really looking for an answer.  I don’t want my prayer silenced by an answer.   There is no answer that would satisfy me.  (Some might call this prayer a whine.  It is more dignified to call it a "lament"!)  

I don’t want anyone to quiet my lament, before I can say it…get it all out.

I want and I need to express my protest, my whine, my lament….  That is my prayer….

My lament gives voice to the human predicament.  Shaking my fist at that Higher Power that is supposed to be in charge…  Protesting the infliction of all the wounds and injuries that tear at the fabric of peace and love…that we try so hard to keep stitched together… just saying out loud my sadness that life is so short…

I also, in prayer, ask for forgiveness; for the hard hearted indifference I sometimes feel, for the wounds I inflict, for the ways I have not done my best, not fulfilled the promise of who I could be…not brought all I am to every present moment to be forgiven...

I find it cleansing to pray…to ask why, to say I am sorry, to express gratitude, to ask for what I need without holding on to the expectation that I will receive exactly what I pray for. 

Prayer can be a starting over place…

For me prayer is not about appeasement or supplication or loyalty….to a particular god…it is certainly not about blind faith…

It is about finding that posture of authenticity…where I am most myself; that particular bend that matches what is really going on in my soul.

For me, I have to let what I think go and move more towards what I feel.   I am not saying this is what prayer should be or is for everyone.  I am saying that for me, when I can move out of my head and into my gut, then my soul seems to open up.  Then there is room inside of me for the sacred…to be present….or just to be aware of the sacred that is always present!

When that happens, then I am praying…

As a “minister”, I am expected to pray in public.  (As a Unitiarian Universalist  minister, not so much!)  I've had to learn how.  When I am called upon, expected to pray, even when it is only with one other person, what I try to do is to say out loud what I have heard… both the words others have said and what I sense they want to hear, to offer back and lift up what I hope helps others to feel affirmed and comforted, to somehow acknowledge that we aren’t alone.    

Prayer is about attempting to make a connection, finding the channel to what is sacred with the least amount of static.

When I pray in private, I am trying first to just give voice to the yearning that is within me… whatever it is…without censure. 

Sometimes my yearning is an asking, sometimes it is a lament in the form of why,  sometimes it is thank you, sometimes it is a promise to do better, be better…make better…  

Sometimes the yearning recedes and I can just sit and be silent and listen…

Mary Oliver says in one of her poems named “Praying”…

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

Prayer is for me a posture that allows the life giving spirit within me to speak... or to just make its movement known in the silence as I listen, as I am moved…. 

  

When I was a chaplaincy student it was my job to be present with patients and family members.   I would enter waiting rooms where traumatized family members sat, often anxious, to hear how their loved ones where doing.  I would introduce myself as the chaplain, knowing that identifying myself that way I would be expected to pray!  Often the expectation was that I pray right way!

I learned to wait; to listen for what words or images might bring comfort to a particular person or family, to hear how I might echo a language of connection that was familiar to them. 

One day, I introduced myself as the chaplain to a family member whose loved one was in the trauma center…. Her son had been shot and he wasn’t doing very well.   When I approached her and said; “I am the chaplain”, she said back; “I am all prayed up”! 

Uhm!   I didn’t take offense!  I wanted to know what she meant, what it was like for her to be “all prayed up”; so later, I asked.

Prayer for her, she said, was not a quick fix for an emergency!  It was a lifetime, life long, ongoing conversation.  It didn’t remove doubt, or fear, or anger, or grief… it wasn’t a band aid… For her, prayer was a constant colorful conversation.  She was always “on line”…

One day, I would like to be able to say; I am all prayed up!

But I am not there yet.  

I still let too much get in the way.  Too much logic, too much focus on the rate of return, too much worry about who is or is not listening…too much awareness of the unfairness of privilege…too much of my head trying to figure out this or that, instead of just praying....

When I need words to help me I often go to these: 

They are The Lord’s Prayer, as translated to English from Aramaic. (Which was the language that Jesus spoke.  Rather than the usual translated which came by way of Aramaic, then Greek, then Latin, then English...)

O cosmic Birther of all radiance and vibration!

Soften the ground of our being and carve out a space within us

where your Presence can abide.

Fill us with your creativity

so that we may be empowered to bear the fruit of your mission.

Let each of our actions bear fruit in accordance with our desire.

Endow us with the wisdom to produce and share

what each being needs to grow and flourish.

Untie the tangled threads of destiny that bind us,

as we release others from the entanglement of past mistakes.

Do not let us be seduced by that which would divert us from our true purpose,

but illuminate the opportunities of the present moment.

For you are the ground and the fruitful vision, the birth power and fulfillment,

as all is gathered and made whole once again.

Ending Words:

from Barbara Gibson's book, Psalms for Troubled Times: Prayers of Hope and Challenge, the 23^rd Psalm.

Creation takes care of me

And gives me what I need.

I lie down on the green grass,

I swim in the clear river.

My heart is whole.

I do what is right for the earth.

Even when I walk in a dark valley,

the shadow of death behind me,

I am not afraid

because creation is with me:

the trees and the mountains comfort me.

Earth's table is set for us

even when we doubt.

Earth's plenty flows over us like balm,

more than enough for everyone.

Surely goodness and mercy

are here for us every day of our lives.

We dwell in the house of earth forever.