PRAYER MEMOIR

I am not much of a pray-er in the traditional sense. I don’t sit down and fold my hands before I eat and say grace, I don’t feel comfortable standing up in a prayer circle for group prayer, and I don’t go through all the procedures that Richard Foster talks about in his book on Prayer. For some reason it seems artificial to me. Not that others are artificial when they do those things, but I feel artificial and uncomfortable when praying with others. I don’t know why. I love God with all my heart, soul, and mind. I feel his Presence with me all the time. I commune with him about everything I do. When I am listening to others share their heart with me I feel connected to them and to God. But offering to pray verbally with them or for them is not my response. Thankfully the Quakers have given me something that I can say with true meaning…”I will hold you in the Light.”
And I do.
I talk to God all the time. I don’t call it prayer. It’s like talking to a friend that is right there with me. We talk about life; about what is going on with me, what is going on with my family and friends, and certainly about what is going on in the world today. I carry people in my heart when I know they are going through a tough time. I suppose that is what others may consider prayer, but for me it’s just being in communion with the one I love best. It would seem strange to me to all of a sudden stop and say, “Ok God, now I am going to pray to you.”
It’s not that I haven’t experienced the traditional experiences of prayer. At one time I had a notebook all divided into the different sections of types of prayers; petition, intercession, healing, and so on. I listed the names and circumstances of friends, family, and the world in the proper section and methodically went through the notebook faithfully every day.
When I shared with other people my “prayer practice” they were impressed. For me it soon became an empty exercise and I stopped it. Maybe it was the form that bothered me. I am a “You don’t know which way the wind blows…” type of individual and have difficulty with most forms.
Being in ministry and being expected to lead the prayers always made me nervous. Again I was saved by the Quakers and would lead the group in a time of silence. That I am totally comfortable with and nothing feels artificial about it at all. Again, I don’t know why that is, but it is.
I have been doing some speculating as to why vocal and form prayer feels artificial to me. It could be my mother (the scapegoat for all my problems). She has said the same grace at every meal for all of my sixty-three years. “Dear God, we thank you for this food. Bless it to our use and us to thy service. Keep us all together as a happy family. Amen”. That is all she has ever said. As my brothers and sisters have gotten older we try to spark it up a bit, like doing a prayer wave around the table. We all think it’s funny…my mom, not so much. Then she threatens that we will have to say grace next time, so we behave ourselves. Maybe that is where the artificial feel comes from.
I was also part of a charismatic church where they pray loudly anywhere and everywhere. Most of the time I would just hang my head and hope no one saw me. I saw a lot of phoniness, like one minute they would be sincerely into talking to a person and praying for them and then when we were going home they would say something awful about the person. It just made me feel bad and certainly distrustful of those who did the praying.
Maybe this is where the artificial feel comes from.
For me prayer is simply being in God’s Presence and I have things that I do that are set apart from my daily comings and goings. I have what I call a “Morning Watch” every morning for at least an hour, longer if time allows. I read the Bible, meditate on what I am reading, and then journal. I have done this Practice for 37 years and only emergencies have kept me from doing it. During the day there will be moments when I just feel like sitting and doing nothing, no thoughts or brilliant ideas, but I feel a nudge from God and so I respond. These are things I guess I could call prayer but I don’t.
I feel a leading to be more intentional with a Practice of Centering Prayer. Of course…it’s silent. I can do silent. So I will be looking more into that and incorporating that into my Practice and schedule. Then I can say that I intentionally pray in a traditional way and I will become a pray-er.