Magazine letter for September 2023
“The proper way for a man to pray,” Said Deacon Lemuel Keyes,
“And the only proper attitude is down upon his knees.”
“No, I should say the way to pray, ” Said the Reverend Doctor Wise,
“Is standing straight with outstretched arms, And rapt and upturned eyes.”
“Oh, no, no, no,” said Elder Snow, “Such posture is too proud;
A man should pray with eyes fast closed And head contritely bowed.”
“Last year I fell in Hidgin’s well Head first,” said Cyrus Brown.
“With both my heels a stickin’ up, My head a-pointing down;
An’ I made a prayer right then an’ there– Best prayer I ever said,
The prayingest prayer I ever prayed, Was a-standing on my head!”
There are many opinions on prayer, but long gone is the idea that it matters what the proper physical attitude is. In fact, it is probably true that prayer is little thought of at all, even by those who do it! We who do pray tend not to think too much about the why or the how, we pray because we pray, for us to stop praying would be like removing a leg from a three-legged stool. Do we get answers to our prayers? It would be impossible to say empirically, but then it is not at all about getting answers.
“Prayer is not about cause and effect. Or at least not in any way that anyone has ever convincingly explained. It may be about longing or listening. It may be about dreaming or grieving. It may be about changing the world, but it is always about changing ourselves.” from Hold On, Let Go: How to find your life by Malcolm Doney and Martin Wroe.
As the Franciscan priest and author, Richard Rohr, has written in his book Just This on prayer, “We trivialised the precious word by making it functional, transactional, and supposedly about problem-solving. The only problem that prayer solves is you! And that is a big problem indeed.”
So prayer is about changing us, not changing God’s mind. And surely that’s what faith is all about.
William