{"id":672,"date":"2023-11-13T19:11:30","date_gmt":"2023-11-13T19:11:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rebelrebel.org.uk\/?p=672"},"modified":"2023-11-13T19:13:20","modified_gmt":"2023-11-13T19:13:20","slug":"pray-all-ways","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rebelrebel.org.uk\/?p=672","title":{"rendered":"Pray All Ways"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Reflection #72 (4th June 2023 at Essex Church \/ Kensington Unitarians)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prayer is, as I mentioned at the start of the service, a perennial topic of exploration at church. It\u2019s a topic we keep coming back to, and rightly so, because the practice of prayer is central, foundational, in pretty much every spiritual tradition you care to name, which indicates it is something we ought to be paying attention to and engaging with, even if our collective relationship to prayer as Unitarians can be\u2026 a bit complicated. Prayer is something I\u2019ve given a lot of thought to over the years \u2013 and a lot of shelf-space too! \u2013 I\u2019ve got all my books about prayer lined up on a shelf over my bed and even if I only count the ones that have got \u2018prayer\u2019 in the title we\u2019re looking at a stack of forty-nine books. This is not me trying to show off! Just an indication that (a) there\u2019s a lot been written about the subject from a variety of perspectives and (b) prayer is something I am fascinated by and continue to wrestle with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course we Unitarians do pray, collectively, in our services \u2013 especially those of us who attend our regular \u2018Heart and Soul\u2019 spiritual gatherings which are essentially a Unitarian prayer group in disguise \u2013 and I know that plenty of us do have our own personal prayer practices too \u2013 but it\u2019s not something we seem to talk about all that much \u2013 not something we tend to foreground as a vital part of our shared religious life. It seems that sometimes our \u2013 laudable \u2013 commitment to reason leaves us reluctant to wholeheartedly enter into prayer when we\u2019re not sure who it is we\u2019re praying to, or what it is we\u2019re even doing, or why. It can leave us praying-with-the-handbrake-on, emotionally speaking, and not fully engaged. If this sort of reservation resonates with your experience, you might appreciate the following words from Anne Lamott, taken from her slim volume on prayer, \u2018Help! Thanks! Wow!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

She writes: \u2018You may be wondering what I even mean when I use the word \u201cprayer\u201d. Prayer is communication from the heart to that which surpasses understanding. Let\u2019s say it is communication from one\u2019s heart to God. Or\u2026 to the Good, the force that is beyond our comprehension but that in our pain or supplication or relief we don\u2019t need to define or have proof of or any established contact with. Let\u2019s say it is what the Greeks called the Really Real, what lies within us, beyond the scrim of our values, positions, convictions and wounds. Or let\u2019s say it is a cry from deep within to Life or Love, with capital L\u2019s\u2026 let\u2019s not get bogged down in whom or what we pray to\u2026 Prayer is us reaching out to something having to do with the eternal, with vitality, intelligence, kindness, even when we are at our most utterly doomed and sceptical. God \u2013 however we understand \u2018God\u2019 \u2013 can handle honesty, and prayer begins an honest conversation\u2026 It is us reaching out to be heard, hoping to be found by a light and warmth in the world, instead of darkness and cold.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Words from Anne Lamott. Or perhaps we can understand prayer in the sense that we heard about in the piece that Sonya read for us earlier by UU minister Vanessa Rush Southern. The purpose of prayer, on this account, is to \u2018put our hearts in the right place\u2019. And what does prayer look like? Well, the different ways we might pray are almost limitless \u2013 we can be silent \u2013 or speak or chant \u2013 or write or draw \u2013 or pray with our whole body \u2013 we can pray alone or together \u2013 with rituals, like candle-lighting \u2013 spontaneously or rote \u2013 using formal and traditional language or expressing ourselves directly and from the heart in our own voice. We can \u2018Pray All Ways\u2019 as Edward Hays said. Sometimes we can get snagged on one particular idea of what prayer is \u2018supposed\u2019 to look like, but there can be a liberating joy in experimenting, being playful, challenging ourselves to mix it up a bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever form it takes, perhaps there\u2019s a common thread of helping to shift our perspective \u2013 you could think of it as getting in touch with a \u2018God\u2019s Eye View\u2019 of your life and the life of the world \u2013 tuning in to some kind of Universal Consciousness \u2013 or connecting with your own inner wisdom. Prayer is a practice that can help us shift ourselves out of everyday autopilot mode, and into a way of being that\u2019s a bit more intentional, re-aligned with our deeper purpose and values.
When we\u2019re feeling a bit lost, or adrift, or stuck \u2013 all of which can happen quite often, I find \u2013 prayer might just remind us who we are, and whose we are, and what matters most of all in this life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I especially appreciate the angle taken by the UU minister Erik Walker Wikstrom in his book \u2018Simply Pray\u2019 (the reading we just heard from Brian only gives the briefest introduction to Wikstrom\u2019s ideas but that book is one I\u2019d count as a huge influence in my own spiritual journey; it got me over some of my own hesitation around prayer and in turn it\u2019s shaped the way I lead our prayers in church). I want to acknowledge that this influence also touched my best friend Jef Jones, former leader of the Brighton congregation, who died just last month; I know Jef did a lot over many years to pass on this way of thinking about prayer, to introduce prayer practices, and to cultivate a prayerful spirit in the congregation; so knowing that Brighton would be joining us today, I chose this topic in Jef\u2019s honour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Erik Walker Wikstrom encourages us to put aside those thorny questions of \u2018who or what are we praying to?\u2019 \u2013 that\u2019s why his book is called \u2018Simply Pray\u2019 \u2013 his is very much a \u2018just do it\u2019 approach. If we waited until we were certain about our theological interpretation of prayer then we\u2019d never do it at all. His understanding is that the practice of prayer has value even if it ultimately turns out that the only person who hears our prayers is us (or, in the case of communal prayers, there is worth in the acknowledgement of our shared human condition). Having carried out a comparative study of prayer practices in a number of the major faith traditions Wikstrom concluded that there are four main strands of prayer that are pretty much common to all. He calls them \u2018Naming, Knowing, Listening, and Loving\u2019 \u2013 these are terms that will be familiar to anyone who\u2019s ever been to Heart and Soul \u2013 it\u2019s the simple structure we\u2019ve been using for many years now to pray together as a group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To unpack it a bit: Naming prayer is simply a gratitude practice \u2013 a mixture of \u2018Thanks!\u2019 and \u2018Wow!\u2019 \u2013 reviewing your day and noticing what\u2019s been good \u2013 whether that\u2019s simply appreciating humble everyday pleasures or standing gobsmacked in awe at the cosmos and the wonder of creation. Knowing prayer is a practice of honest self-reflection \u2013 reviewing your own actions and attitudes \u2013 noticing where you did well, where you made mistakes \u2013 seeking guidance to put things right. Listening prayer is simply contemplative stillness \u2013 \u2018a silence into which another voice may speak\u2019. Loving prayer is bringing our awareness to the needs of others who are struggling and suffering, both close to home and around the globe, and expressing our compassion and hopes for them. Naming, Knowing, Listening, and Loving. There are many ways to pray but that\u2019s not a bad start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re anything like me, you might find prayer comes most easily when you\u2019re struggling, and that it\u2019s more likely to bubble up spontaneously as a cry for help when life seems especially tough (and crying \u2018Help!\u2019 is also a form of loving prayer, by the way; it\u2019s a form of healthy self-love and self-compassion to recognise when we\u2019re pushed beyond our limits and we need help from beyond). But there is something to be said for intentionally cultivating a regular prayer practice, and making it an integrated part of our everyday life, instead of something we only turn to as a last resort when things are desperate. So why not try sitting in bed last thing at night, or first thing in the morning, any quiet moment you can claim really, and giving yourself ten minutes to go through the four strands of prayer \u2013 naming, knowing, listening, loving \u2013 in your mind, in your journal, or spoken out loud. You don\u2019t have to do this alone \u2013 you could make this a daily ritual you do with someone you live with \u2013 you could exchange prayers-via-text with a friend \u2013 or come to Heart and Soul! As Wikstrom says, in the end, there is no substitute for getting your feet wet, so just do it: Simply Pray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To close I want to offer just a few words from another Unitarian thinker, Jack Mendelsohn, by way of encouragement to find your own way with prayer. He writes: \u2018Prayer is an effort to reach deep and to reach out and to become what we would like to be and need to be and ought to be. Proper prayer is not a petition to escape realities. It is an effort to understand them, to deal with them\u2026 to grow in courage, strength and in faith. The purpose of prayer is to transform those doing the prayer, to lift them out of fear and selfishness, into serenity, patience, determination, belonging.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And doesn\u2019t that sound like something we could all do with a bit more of in our lives? Amen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sermon by Jane Blackall<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

An audio recording of this sermon is available:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\nhttps:\/\/www.kensington-unitarians.org.uk\/pod2011\/KU_jane.blackall_hybrid_sermon_04.06.23.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n