Welcome!

If you are here to explore working with a Spiritual Director, you may well be in the right place. Explore the site -- go to the GETTING STARTED (FAQ) page where many of your questions may already be answered; read the blog and listen to how you feel; follow some of the links to learn more; find out a little something about my background. If you'd like to contact me -- either to set up an appointment or ask a questions, there's a contact form on the right side of each page that you can use to MAKE A CONNECTION.

Most simply, though, the spirit of my practice can be summed up in these words (adapted from Robert Mabry Doss): For those who come here seeking God ... may God go with you. For those who come embracing life ... may life return your affection. And for those who come to seek a path ... may a way be found, and the courage to take it step by step.

Monday, September 3, 2018

Styles of Prayer

In my book Simply Pray: a modern spiritual practice to deepen your life I suggest that there are essentially two styles of prayer:  rote and improvisatory.  Many people who describe themselves as "spiritual but not religious," and even some who would call themselves more traditionally religious, prefer the later to the former.

Rote prayers are those which have been set down through the ages and which we are expected to repeat, "as is."  The Catholic practice of saying the Rosary is a good example.  As described in the Wikipedia article about the practice:
The prayers that comprise the Rosary are arranged in sets of ten Hail Marys, called decades.  Each decade is preceded by one Lord's Prayer and followed by one Glory Be.  During recitation of each set, thought is given to one of the Mysteries of the Rosary, which recall events in the lives of Jesus and Mary.  Five decades are recited per rosary.  Other prayers are sometimes added before or after each decade.  Roasary beads are an aid toward saying these prayers in the proper sequence.
You are not encouraged to do it your own way.  The practice is the practice, as it "is, and was, and always will be."  To many modern minds this feels both forced and forced.  It doesn't treat me as an individual; no matter what my life's situation, no matter how I might feel in the moment, I'm still expected to say the same prayers I said yesterday and will say again tomorrow.  To modern ears, the word rote conveys the notion of "mechanical" and "unthinking."  Something that someone does "by rote" has no real meaning.  It's just something that we do.

Improvisatory prayers, in contrast, are entirely about how things are for me in the moment.  They could also be called "spontaneous prayers," because they come out of my current experience.  If I'm feeling joyful, I might express that joy with words of gratitude; if I'm feeling sorrow I might give voice to my grief.  Improvisatory prayers allow me to truly express myself.  They allow me the freedom to be who and how I am in that moment.

As with so many things in life -- and, perhaps, particularly in things related to spirituality -- there is a both/and quality to this seeming dichotomy.  Each approach has something to recommend it; each presents hurdles to a full spiritual life.

The rote prayers may, indeed, force us into a mold, yet they also connect us to a tradition that is hundreds of years old.  They may seem to squash our individuality, yet the spiritual life is not just about the individual.  If it's healthy and real, the spiritual life is also about community.  (Some might say more so.)  Rote prayers remind us of community -- generations of people before me have said these exact same prayers, and in the moment I say them, thousands of people around the world are saying them, too.  There's another gift in rote prayer which is easily overlooked.  The origin of the word "rote" is in the Old English, where it meant simply, "habit."  Whether or not a rote prayer is purely an unthinking, mechanical act is, ultimately a choice.  You can choose to really engage in, for instance, the Rosary deeply, and those who do report something remarkable -- although you say the same words in the same order, the experience changes.  Sometimes you find yourself focusing on certain words which seem to speak directly to what you're experiencing in that moment.  Another day other words might hold your attention, words you may have not even really noticed before and yet which today are just the words you need to hear.  By doing the same thing over and over again it can become such a habit that you no longer have to think about the doing of it, which can increase your ability to really experience it more fully.

Improvisatory prayers, on the other hand, certainly give you free reign to express yourself, yet that freedom can also be a trap.  In today's society, which makes an idol of the individual, it can be hard to remember that it really isn't "all about me."  I can so easily get caught up in my story, my reality, that I can lose sight of the undeniable fact of my place in the universe (which.is, in case you've forgotten in the moment, definitely not in the center).  And yet, while there may indeed be prayers which speak to my current situation in a traditional "book of common prayer" -- such as the prayer book of the Unitarian Universalist Christian congregation of King's Chapel in Boston -- it is likely as not that there won't be anything that is "quite right."  Sometimes you have to be free to say what's on your mind and in your heart.

In the 1997 Robert Duval film The Apostle, there's a scene in which Duval's character, a fiery Pentecostal preacher, is pacing back and forth in his room saying, "I love you God.  I'm mad at you, but I love you."  Well, maybe he's shouting more than simply "saying," but in that moment Sonny needed to give voice to his tremendous anger at God.  No prayer written down in some other time would do.  And if prayer is, as the Greek Orthodox priest Anthony Bloom asserts in his book Beginning to Pray and Living Prayer, about deepening our relationship with the sacred and holy (whether we think of that literally or metaphorically), then we do need to be able to express ourselves in our own words, just as we would when we're in conversation with any friend.

The prayer bead practice I developed, and describe in Simply Pray, includes both these styles of prayer -- there are elements which you are encouraged to do by rote, and those which encourage you to pray spontaneously.  It seems to me that both are needed for a full, whole, rich, and deep spiritual life, just as you need both protein and carbohydrates in your diet.

Pax tecum,

RevWik