Not Dark Yet: Why Pray?

Prayer can take many forms. There is the urgent plea for help or guidance, there is the quiet prayer of thanks whispered at day’s end or when family is gathered. There are prayers of confession, prayers of praise and adoration. Private prayers and public prayers may take the form of petition, praise or gratitude.

Some will ask, why pray? Is there really a God to pray to, or if there is, why do we imagine that God is listening? Does prayer make a difference in what happens in our lives and in the world?

For me, it is important to gather with others in prayer. I do not imagine that I am bringing my case before God in an attempt to change the mind of the divine or to coerce supernatural intervention. Participating in the public prayers of the church, however, is a way for me to bring myself into a deeper consciousness of what God’s own concerns may be for the human community in which I live.

Mending Battered Sails

I discovered liturgical prayer at a time when I had been battered by circumstances and unsure of which way to turn. Ironically, it was religious life that had left me battered. I was a graduate of Golden Gate Baptist Seminary and had just completed a two-year missionary assignment teaching English at Hong Kong Baptist College.

During my entire four years of college and three years of seminary, my Southern Baptist denomination had been enduring its own “culture war” which some of my colleagues refer to as “the religious wars.” Those with a conservative fundamentalist orientation within the Southern Baptist Convention were highly displeased with the state of higher education, especially of what they viewed as liberal trends in seminary education.

By the time I returned to the States after two years overseas, the fundamentalists had successfully wrested control of the denomination. I found a church where I no longer had any hopes of making a spiritual home. Leaving meant severing possibilities of serving in the profession in which I had been trained, but staying would have created far too much dissonance. Since I had become acquainted with an Anglican priest in Hong Kong who had once been a Baptist, I decided to explore the Episcopal Church to see if there were any possibilities for me there.

A New Language

I discovered in the small Anglo-Catholic Episcopal parish of St. Andrew’s in Birmingham an ancient liturgy that opened up a new world of faith for me. Having been raised in a non-liturgical tradition, I saw the ancient liturgy of the church as a new language for worship. In order to learn all that I could, I committed myself to the liturgical life of the Church. I made the conscious decision to become a learner. I was committed to learn a new language of worship and to proceed as if I did not even know how to pray.

In the months that followed, I began to find some healing and inner re-structuring as I allowed myself to be shaped and guided by the liturgical prayers of the church. I would say that I found a spiritual formation by way of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. The beautiful prayers I heard and took part in throughout the liturgical year increased my awareness of God’s own concern for those who struggle, those who suffer, and those who seek justice.

I heard collects invoke the presence of God, as in “Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known and from you no secrets are hid.” Ancient prayers such as Phos Hilaron (O Gracious Light) became new and rich for me. When I sang the Gloria and the Sanctus with the congregation during the Sunday liturgy, I was praying ancient prayers that connected me with that “great cloud of witnesses” who have stood to say those words of praise for hundreds of years (and who continue to say them in all of the liturgical congregations today).

During the prayers of the church, I was brought with the community into awareness of those in trouble or in prison. My heart was drawn to people who suffer in body, mind or spirit. I was reminded in the context of prayer to reverence the earth and to care for it. I became aware of the holy task of those who fight for justice, freedom, and peace. All of this happened within the community at prayer.

Throughout the liturgical cycle of the year, there were seasons of joy and seasons of sadness; times for repentance and times of affirmation. There were days of fasting and days of feasting. Community prayers were there in the midst of worship to guide us in our grieving, in our waiting, and in our moments of celebration.

Why do we pray? I learned that when I allowed the liturgy to pull me away from my limited frame of reference, I came into a larger awareness of what the presence of God means. I gained further insight into what the reign of God entails. My prayer life was expanded. By participating with the praying community, concerns I might not have considered were brought to mind. Even the cosmic presence of Christ as sustainer of the world became a cause for celebration.

Praying with Grace

Last Sunday when I visited my friends at Grace Episcopal Church, I was reminded once again of why we pray. During the Prayers of the People, the worshiping community there made use of some intercessions from The Church of England’s Common Worship: Times and Seasons. In the Episcopal Church, there are six basic forms in the prayer book to select from for the Prayers of the People during the liturgy. Using a different form was an enriching change, but the beauty and the content of the prayer was a wonderful illustration of how prayer can draw us into an awareness of how we are called to participate in doing the things that God does.

Here are the prayers as prayed at Grace last Sunday:

The Prayers of the People

Upon the rich earth send a blessing, O Lord.

Let the earth be fruitful

and its resources be hallowed.