By Bonnie A. Perry
How’s your prayer life? Anyone here satisfied with your prayer life? I have spent 20 years in parish ministry, and never yet has someone plopped down next to me and said, “You know what Bonnie? I’ve got this killer prayer life.”
Now you may be thinking, “Well that’s because no one actually talks that way, Bonnie.” But the thing is, I hang out with some pretty churchy-type people who regularly talk about spirituality and theology and liturgy and scripture. Since I am a priest, a bunch of the folks I consort with are church geeks, and I’m telling you, no one is happy with his or her prayer life.
Heck, even Mother Theresa, when it was all said and done, was disappointed with her prayer life.
Why is that?
Is it because we are novice Christians, spiritual slackers? Is it because our faith is shallow and our commitment faltering? Or is it because we think prayer is something that it’s not? Or something more than it is?
Is it something we think we are supposed to have mastered on our own–without any help? Or in the end, is it something only really pious people, folks long gone from this life ever came close to doing right?
For my money, a recent Gospel has a number of insights about prayer.
Jesus is out and about, and apparently is a bit tired of all the people following him. So he ducks into a house to lay low.
But a gentile woman sees him go into the house, and forgoing all the customs regarding Jews and Gentiles, abandoning the established etiquette on not just barging into someone else’s house, she follows him. Her daughter is ill. Her daughter needs help, and her need, not social norms and customs, is what matters.
She sees Jesus slip inside. She follows. Bows down low, and asks him to please heal her daughter. He attempts to blow her off. He says, in effect: I can’t help you. I’m only here to help my people. Helping you would be like taking the special food set aside for the children and giving it to the dogs. I’m not gonna do that.
( Please note this is not Jesus at his most pastoral.)
To which this woman tenaciously replies: Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
“Even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs!”
And that stops him. She’s right—he’s wrong. So he says with admiration, because he does enjoy a well argued case, “For saying that, you may go. Your daughter is healed.”
So when seeking something from the Holy One of God, it seems audaciousness, tenacity and the ability to hold our own are all helpful. And please take note at just how forthright she is. No flowery language here. Barges in, bows down, asks the question and refuses to be blown off.
Next story: Jesus is in the region of Decapolis when a group of people bring of friend of theirs to him to be healed. Their friend has a speech impediment and is unable to hear. They beg Jesus to make him well.
This interaction is incredibly physical. Not just a verbal interchange, but a physical, tangible, yet private event. Jesus takes the fellow away from all the eyes, away from the crowds. Then he sticks his fingers in the man’s ears. Then he spits on his fingers and touches the man’s tongue.
Jesus looks to heaven, sighs deeply and says, “Ephaphatha—be opened.”
And the man can now hear clearly and speak plainly.
What might this tell us about prayer?
It’s physical. It doesn’t have to be, nor should it be, a purely intellectual/verbal pursuit. Jesus is sticking his hands in his ears, spitting, sighing—all the senses are being used.
Prayer is hands on. It’s also sometimes corporate or communal. The man’s friends brought him to Jesus.
Sometimes we just can’t ask for something ourselves. Sometimes our friends and family— the ones who know us best and love us the most—need to be the ones to ask and start the prayer.
Sometimes we need to be the ones who do it for folks who just cannot do it on their own. This part isn’t long or complicated. It doesn’t require special insight or advanced degrees.
Sometimes prayer is just physically putting someone in front of another who can help.
Finally, in both of these stories, prayer begins with being wildly aware of our surroundings: where we are, who is with us, what we need, what our friends may long for, who can assist. Prayer in its most effective form always begins with being aware.
Prayer is—if I were to list some ingredients—audacity, tenacity, community, physicality, and most important of all, a longing for what could be and an awareness and openness to all that is around us.
Or as the poet Mary Oliver puts it ever so much more succinctly in “Praying”
It doesn’t have to be
the blue Iris. It could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a
few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and
don’t try
to make them elaborate, this
isn’t
a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in
which
another voice may speak.
Indeed. Amen.
The Rev. Bonnie Perry is the rector of All Saints Episcopal Church, Chicago.