praying

Praying is, well, strange.  For many of us, our prayer life consists of a sort of informal conversation with God.  I say "sort of" because it's not really a conversation.  It's more like a therapy session, whereby God is the listener/therapist and we are the clients.  The conversation is one-sided for a lot of us.  How does one become the listener in that conversation?  Someone once said, "When I tell people that I speak to God, they call me a saint.  When I tell people, God spoke to me they call me a lunatic."  But the motto of the United Church of Christ is "God is still speaking..."  At any rate, the informal conversation with God thing has been touted as the sign that one's prayer is sincere, personal, and meaningful. Rote prayers, ritualized, fixed, written, or liturgical prayer have been maligned as insincere, impersonal, and lacking proper expression. But you know that we talk about prayer more than we actually pray. Because we don't know how to pray.  We want to think it's easy, but it is not.  It is unnatural and takes practice.  Prayer is more like learning a foreign language than chatting with an old buddy.

A lot of people say that they pray.  Usually the prayers are long-winded versions of "Help me" or "help so-and-so". Sometimes the prayers are made in real desperation, fear, or despair. I don't doubt the sincerity or the necessity of such prayers. They are real. People pray in a crisis and people pray at dinner.  Beyond that, I suspect there is a gap.  People ask me to pray for them because I am an ordained pastor.  Sometimes my prayers for said person are as simple as "This is my prayer for NAME. I commit them to you, God.  Amen."  I think that remembering someone in one's thoughts can be a prayer.  Does God distinguish between the thoughts of our hearts and a spoken word?  I think prayer can and ought to be simple like this.  I suspect that people ask me to pray because they don't know how and they assume that I do.  People expect prayer to work, to lead to action or performance or miracle.
But prayer is also communion with God.  Prayer is acknowledgment that we are walking on holy ground, that we are in the divine presence.  Prayer, for some, has led to ecstatic visions, to spiritual elevation, to life-altering encounter with the Lord.  Prayer has become the devoted work of countless faithful people throughout the centuries.  I could devote myself to prayer, if I had the time...
I like to pray Psalms.  Mainly because they are Jewish prayers with YHWH as the God. Creation and redemption are primary themes.  The Psalmist is often a wounded figure, seeking God's protection and vindication.  I hear the cries of the suffering in them and so I hear Jesus in them, too.
I have come to rely on fixed prayers, in the morning and the evening, to keep me alert to God's presence.  I like reading prayers because they are sometimes beautiful, more faithful, and more articulate than I.Praying with the church in a monastic sort of way has drawn me closer to God. And yet, in the words of Bono, I still haven't found what I'm looking for.  Prayer is a lifelong endeavor.  You are shaped by it.  Praying rhythmically at certain hours everyday means that I am not in control.  God commands my attention.  I don't trust myself with prayer.  I will ignore others, ignore God, and focus on me.  Praying the Lord's Prayer, psalms, creeds, and other written prayers helps me to be more faithful than I am.  And it reminds me that God and my fellow sinner/saints are faithful when I am not.