Holding the prayers of others: an invitation
August 17th, 2007
One of my favorite art purchases ever is this ex voto from Guatemala. I found it at my favorite gallery about 9 years ago. It’s a thank you note to God (or in this case Christ the King of the Mountain) for having survived a school bus accident, hand stitched by the person giving thanks. As soon as I saw it, I was touched by it. At the time it was because it made me think about how often when we make it through something scary we move straight through the “thank goodness I’m alive” and on to: “whose fault was this?” and “How can I make sure I’m never so scared again?” or, in many cases, “Where can I get some financial recompense for being so threatened?” Taking the time and trouble to mark the sheer fact of survival when things could have turned out otherwise, to actually make a beautiful tribute to the fact of being saved… well, it just hadn’t ever occurred to me.
When I bought it, I had just graduated with my M.Div., been through a divorce, and had a brush with death in the form of a pulmonary embolism. I had plenty of reason to be thankful just to be walking around somewhat intact. And so I carried it home on the plane as a reminder of the constant need to offer thanks and praise. I don’t usually think of prayer as having magical powers or as something one does to stave off bad events in life. I certainly don’t tend to attribute miraculous survival to the person of Jesus. But whatever the direction of prayer, I am ever more convinced that it is important as an acknowledgement of the struggle and the joy of our lives. We sanctify them by offering them up, just as they are, to some great and ultimately unnamable force. And when we say them out loud, make them into art, preserve the significant moments of our lives, we come to understand them in a new way, to offer them a bigger context and sometimes a greater purpose.
As I have held onto this particular prayer from the journal of Zenaida, I’ve also come to realize the power of holding and honoring anothers’ prayer — one that belongs to someone I may never meet, with a life I probably can’t imagine. Most of us are familiar with prayer chains and different ways of sharing prayer as a way to magnify its efficacy or just to feel held in community. From Catholic altars and shrines to puja offered at Hindu shrines and temples, there seems to be a universal human need to offer prayers publicly, to share them and believe they can be heard — if not by the gods or goddesses, then by our fellow humans. Who knows, they could be one in the same.
One of my favorite parts of the liturgy we do at my church is the Morning Prayer. Before worship begins, anyone in the congregation is invited to write down a prayer and light a candle on a table at the front of the sanctuary. They can indicate whether they wish for it to remain private or want it to be shared, and then as I speak the rest of the prayer I read the words of prayer of the folks in the congregation. On the days when I think about its meaning too deeply, I end up choking back tears. There is something astoundingly powerful to me about having the honor of speaking the prayers of others. I consider it the centerpiece and most religiously important part of our worship.
I don’t know how many people are reading this blog (my stats just say how many hits there were, but I don’t know about duplicates or from where), but I’d like to offer this as a place where folks might also offer prayers to be shared. Not in a creepy chain-letter way, but as a way to offer up genuine thanks, or concern, or sorrow, and let it be held by a larger community that will offer some tender care. I can hear many of my beloved rationalist atheist UU’s rolling their eyes at how cheeseball it may seem. But I’d be willing to bet that even you folks have some deep yearnings that you’d love to get off your chests and have a little bit of help holding.
Give it up, dear readers. Do you have a thank you note to God? A lament? A tirade? A full-on angst directed at the universe? Let’s hear ‘em.
PS: Later update — I will have intermittent email access at best for the next week, so if you don’t see a comment right away, know that it will be posted as soon as I can get to it.
August 19th, 2007 at 6:14 am
The bus picture reminds me of something I haven’t thought of in a while.
On a misbegotten mission trip in 1995, our truck broke down and two friends and I had to sleep in a roadside dump in a little middle-of-nowhere town in Mexico, awaiting a fuel pump from the States. We were rescued by a family who took in all three of us, even though they didn’t have room; they fed and sheltered us for five days. They had one piece of art in the house, a painting of a chair that the mother had painted when she was a girl. Making conversation one day, I complimented it. When our truck was fixed, and we were ready to continue do-gooding our way southward, she gave me a bundle wrapped in cloth: the painting. It has been one of my greatest theological lessons: we thought we were so noble and high-minded, bringing gifts to the benighted, but the whole disaster of a trip entailed us being bailed out of trouble, again and again, by poor people. When I get prideful and think the world needs only my effort and willpower and verbosity, the painting reminds me to sit, to listen, to receive, and give thanks.
I give thanks for this site as well, which is like ice water on a day when it will hit 100 and the church year will start, stirring in me decidedly mixed feelings. I give thanks for the people of the church, full of anxiety and hope, especially the couple tearing each other part in front of their kids right now; and the one in jail for pulling a knife on a bus-driver; and the four so far who have criticized my new beard in as many days; and the several trying to battle mental illness; and the one who has given up with his pitiful smile at the potluck this week where he hid from people by washing the dishes.
I give thanks for my beautiful wife and son, sleeping downstairs, and pray for the health of our little child, due in March, having just heard a heartbeat on Thursday–thinking of it brings tears to my eyes–but also having learned in the past year the painfully-true meaning of the phrase, “don’t count your chickens before they hatch.” And so I’m looking for trust this time that all will be well.
In all of this, with sweat already trickling down my arms and my sermon not-yet-quite-finished-if-it-ever-will-be, I am trying to give it up to God.
–FasterPastor
August 20th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Beautiful idea — one of favorite parts of Shabbat services is the cantor praying for members of the congregation–the prayers in Hebrew, then the names of those being prayed for (celebrated or kept in thoughts).
My prayer: Thank you, universe for blessing me with the gift of two beautiful sons, for a partner in life in the truest sense, for meaningful work, clean water to drink and the gift of loving friends and family. I give thanks today for Parisa, who speaks to my heart on a day when I am struggling through the haze to see all my many reasons to give thanks.
August 21st, 2007 at 2:41 pm
Fasterpastor, I miss you! I give thanks for your ministry, for the gift you bring to the many people in your care, for the news of your baby-to-be and the great gift of the family already there. I give thanks to have this way to be in connection, and pray that we may continue to know and rely on one anothers’ friendship, even when words come few and far between.
And Rosalie, Amen to your prayer, and thanks and blessings for you and that family and our intertwined roots on this nutty journey of faith and life.
Writing from Williamstown, MA, I am also giving thanks for the artists in our midst. For those who struggle with mental and physical illness to communicate the beauty, the pain, the joy and the struggle of living in this world, and offer it to the rest of us as a mirror for our own.
I pray we will be held in a loving embrace, held and cradled and rocked into peaceful slumber, that we may find refreshment for the hard work of being the hands, feet, eyes and ears of god, building a world in which all are cared for, all are blessed, and all have abundant life.
August 22nd, 2007 at 7:38 am
Offering prayers today for the accreditation of St. Andrews Presbyterian College.
Also for the return to health, to the extent possible, of our 13-year-old family cat; and if the worst comes, for emotional strength for my kids, who will take the loss quite hard.
August 23rd, 2007 at 7:09 am
Will you hold my grandma (Alice), and uncles (Chuck and Mack) dear today? They are affected by the flooding in Ohio; my grandmother is in hospice care and needs medication today. I was finally able to speak with my grandmother a moment ago and she said while her house is on a hill and is yet relatively unscathed so far, the water is creeping ever closer and my uncle Chuck has already suffered devastating losses and Mack lives with my Grandma right now.
Thank you so much.
August 30th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
Please pray for Gus, the kid who lived next door to us when my brother and I were growing up, who was a year behind me in middle school, and then followed me to college, and then even followed me to grad school. I just learned that a few days ago he was struck and killed by a car while riding his bike. And also please hold tenderly in your hearts and thoughts his mother Nancy, his sister Diana, and his wife and two young children whom I have never met.