Sometimes I pray with the people I visit. “What shall we pray for?” I ask, and I am in awe of what comes forth. Today, at the rehab facility, Martha wanted to pray for her caregivers. Here she was, sitting in her wheelchair, putting aside her long-term struggles and expressing compassion for the dedicated help she had been receiving for close to seven months.
     Visiting always presents an opportunity for me to receive as well as give. I don’t want to say that I receive more than I give, although that often feels like the case, because I don’t consider giving and receiving as competitive, or as one being better than the other. I am committed to experiencing them as part of the same seamless cloth, perhaps a beautiful prayer shawl.

     Childhood memories about praying can give us a window into how we learned to pray. I saw my parents praying every Sunday at church. Occasionally they talked about prayer with me. When I was thirteen I recall my father’s precise words as I considered which friend to invited to come with us on a trip to Canada.
     “You might consider praying about it.”
     I remember talking to God about it, and after a couple of days telling Dad my decision. The answer was right; we had a wonderful early teen time.
That’s pretty much the way I pray for decisions now, sixty years later. Pose a questions; talk with God; listen for an answer; stick with the decision and be happy with it. I pray mind, body, spirit, all mixed together.

Mind; an idea; thinking about a problem, chatting with God about it.
Body: the physical experience; we live in the body.
Spirit: a peaceful response; loving.

Again, a post on Acottagebythesea with commentary.
       Many of my friends fall into the ‘spiritual but not religious’ category. If they attend church they go to the Unitarian church (my church for 15 years). Many were brought up Christian but have either wandered away or made a conscious decision not to affiliate as Christian. They are loving, caring, giving people, believing, they might say, in a ‘higher being;’ that say that we are all on the same path, wanting the same things. I won’t argue with that, but for me, having walked the ‘spiritual but not religious’ path, I know that I am in different and better place as a Christian than when I was human being trying to do the right thing. It’s all about humility and I can’t get that on my own. Believe me, I’ve tried.
      It was a challenge to talk about my faith but I’m glad I did. Here’s how it went.
 
     The other day I had lunch with a group of long-time friends. The six of us get together every three of four months, and lately we’ve developed the ritual of checking-in. Around the table we go, one by one telling what’s going on in our lives. Although we keep in touch individually, this communal forum offers a venue for a more public, on the-record-account, thus making our group time together sacred.
     Knowing there would be a formal check-in, I found myself planning ahead what I wanted to say. I gave an update on the doings of my family, and then albeit awkwardly, I talked about how important my faith is to me, not just as a way to do nice things for others, but as the only way I know to be humble. I mentioned that I grapple with my white privilege; that being a good person on my own isn’t enough; and that my faith leads me to confront judgments, critiques, pride, impatience, and arrogance that keep me from being humble. In other words, I can’t be humble all by myself on my own doing. AND, I desperately need humility because it the only way of being that leads me to peace.
     To my surprise I ended by saying, “I believe that right now in my life I am supposed to pray for people.”

     I still can't believe I blurted that out. Notice, I didn't say that I was called to pray. In thinking about it, I wonder if that proclamation was one of the most important thing I've said out loud? Certainly the most powerful, if not to them, at least to myself.

     I posted this on acottagebythesea but here on aprayerdairy I’ve extended the ending.
 
     Those of you who follow me on this blog know that I long for solitude-- after all, that’s what the blog is about. But even if you don’t know me personally you can probably surmise that I can be quite social. On the Myers-Briggs I’m right in the middle on the introvert/extrovert continuum. I get energy from both solitude and community.
     Lately I’ve been thinking about community, it’s importance in society at large, and for me in particular. Although I have a good amount of solitude in my life, I also have many communities: family, friends, and church are the big categories, but within them are many little overlapping ones.
     Case in point. Friday I went to Andover Newton Theological School to celebrate the retirement of Bob Pazmino, Professor of Christian Education. When I was there (1998-2003) getting my MDiv, Bob was a mentor and friend. We had much in common through our writings for teachers: he for Christian educators, me for elementary school teachers. His memoir, A Boy Grows Up in Brooklyn, was a catalyst for me to write Very Grateful: The Story of My Hundred Year Old Mother and Me.
     That evening of celebration rekindled many communities from my student days at ANTS. Communities with professors, administrators, students, and families, and each with overarching theme of writing. A long time friend asked for encouragement to write when she retires in June; a graduating student explained how he wants to write about climate change; one of Bob’s cousins told me she had read Joyful Learning when she was a kindergarten teacher. Kirk Jones, my preaching professor, asked me what I was writing these days, and then encouraged keep at it. He and I are going to be in touch. 
     Yes, we have our major communities, which for me are family, friends, and church. And we have our small ones, too. They flow among each other, coming and going, vibrating and fading, but all part of the whole which constitutes our lives.
   
    Here are a few more details of my discussion with Kirk Jones. When he asked me what I was doing these day, much to my astonishment I blurted out that I was praying.
     ‘And again to my astonishment he asked, “Are you writing about it?”
I can’t get that question out of my mind. Writing about my call to prayer would reveal more about me than most people know. Although I write about it here, most of the people I know personally don’t know this blog exists. Of the seventy or so who sign in on a given day to read Aprayerdiary maybe I know five. Much to ponder.
     Kirk, we must talk.

      At church on Sunday we gathered as a community to worship God through participation in The Lord’s Prayer Experience. Composer YOsef Kottler, along with musicians, soloists and choir members from Congregation Beth El in Sudbury, joined us at Memorial Congregational Church as our choir director Cathy Meyer led us in singing.
     According to Cathy, “YOsef wrote this piece of music after having a powerful spiritual moment learning about The Lord’s Prayer during a trip to Jerusalem. Now he feels called to bring this music to a wide variety of people, bringing them together to celebrate and share their faith journeys through song.”
     Prayer and song became one. We all were uplifted, but for one newcomer to our church, the service was a life-sustaining moment just when she needed it. She came to the service wondering if she could make it through. “I may not stay,” she told someone. She needed to return to the nursing home where her father was dying; the countdown was in hours. But stay she did. The music, the singing and the listening, opened her heart to God, and to God’s companionship. Her father died peacefully the next day in her presence.

    A few more thoughts about prayer to add to the following cottage-by-the-sea post. This pausing in the midst of reading sends me to a deep place with God, a place where God is present with nothing added. I go from reading and thus being ‘in my head’, to resting with God in my heart. Perhaps this, for me, is the essence of contemplative prayer.

     My Reading for Compassion project is taking on new titles: Reading for Humility, Reading for Gratitude, Reading as Prayer. How can I not feel compassion, humility, gratitude and prayerful when I read about the poverty and sexism in India or Appalachia?
     I am surprise, however, by how centered I feel while reading about these challenging life situations. Sometimes I pause to feel the presence of the Holy, the ineffable. In part, my gratitude is for the grace-filled life I have been given, but it is also for the hope lived out by the protagonists in the stories. That is what humbles me.
     To date I’m averaging a book every three days—I have given myself permission to read during the day. In some inexplicable way, I believe I am offering hope to a world fraught with anger, jealousy, bigotry, poverty, and mistrust.

     Amy Carmichael, a missionary in South India (1895-1951) wrote: It is good to remember that immediate answer to prayer is not always something seen, but it is always inward peace.
     I need to hear this. How hard it is to remember the basics of faith, which I sum up as inward peace and love, these days. Jesus tells us not to be afraid, a message purported to be mentioned in the Bible 365 times, one for each day of the year. When I read the paper and listen to the news and I get afraid. My heart, where prayer and inward peace abide, gets smothered by my mind.
     After centering prayer this morning, I heard that I must stay away from the news if I want to answer God’s call to pray. What is a connection between do not fear and enter through the narrow gate?
     This post is surely a work in process, and hopefully progress as well.

    Today it has come to me that, although there are many kinds of prayer—praise, thanksgiving, confession, petition, repentance, intercessory—there is one prayer that covers it all: Thy will be done. Not that we need to give up our particular cries for help, but I something find myself overdoing it--talking it all out with God, giving God all the details, and telling God what to do for the outcome I want.
     Then, when I shut up and lift the person or situation to the light, I feel peace and I know that who and what I am praying for is feeling it, too.