Types of Prayer

As noted in the last post, the prayer bead practice I describe in my book Simply Pray: a modern spiritual practice to deepen your life uses what I call the two "styles" of prayer -- rote and improvisatory.  Today I want to say a little something about the four "types" prayer incorporated in this practice.

When you look at prayer practices from a distance, looking at them across traditions and without attaching any particular theological limitations to your exploration, you'll notice certain types of prayer are present just about anywhere the concept of payer, itself, is present.  The wonderful Anne Lammott suggests in her book Thanks, Help, Wow: the three essential prayers, that there are, well, three essential prayers.  Those prayers can be summed up in those three words:  thanks, help, and wow.  I think that she's missed one, so my practice leads you through four.

First, there are prayers of gratitude.  While there are "technical" differences, I think that you can take prayers of thanksgiving, and prayers of praise, and consider them both to be prayers of gratitude.  And it makes sense to me that any practice of prayer should start with a recognition, a conscious awareness of and attention to, the beauty, the miracles, around us.   One of E. E. Cummings' most well known poems begins:

i thank You God for most this amazing
day; for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

I discussed this poem in an earlier post, and how many people start their day reciting this poem, or at least this stanza.  "i thank You God for most this amazing day."  The 14th century German philosopher, theologian, preacher, priest, and mystic Meister Eckhart famously said, "If you pray only one prayer in your life, and it is 'thank you,' it will be sufficient."  In the prayer bead practice I describe I call these prayers of Naming.  In and through them we name the things in our lives for which we are grateful.

Next there comes what I refer to as prayers of Knowing.  These are perhaps more traditionally known as prayers of confession, although that term carries a great deal of baggage and is something I'll explore in a later post.  As is so often the case, I think that the 12 Step programs once again give us very helpful language to understand traditional religious concepts in more accessible ways.  In the 4th Step we make, "a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves," and in the 5th Step we, "[Admit] to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs."

In the "Big Book" of Alcoholics Anonymous explains the 4th Steps through the analogy of a business which, in order to stay successful must routinely take an inventory of its stock, getting rid of things that have, for instance, passed their expiration date, become moldy, etc.  It's also important to get a clear idea of just what usable items you have on your shelves, so that you don't run out of them when you need them most.  For our inner lives, too, it's important to regularly take stock, to look at what's no longer serving us, what's getting in the way of our growth, and what may actually be causing us harm, as well as to see what good things we might want to "order" more of.

The purpose of the 5th Step is described as being vitally important because it seems to be human nature to try to hide those parts of ourselves that we consider "broken" or "bad."  We can so easily become trapped in feelings of shame and worthlessness.  If we don't honestly acknowledge our whole selves -- our "bad" as well as our "good" -- we can never actually be whole.  So it's important to admit to ourselves where we are less than we want to be.  Yet if that's all we do, we still might live with that all too common sense that, "if they really knew me no one would like me."  Admitting to "another human being," then, is a way of demonstrating to ourselves -- actually experiencing -- that who we are is okay.  When we share the "shocking" with someone who doesn't immediately shun us, we step out from beneath the weight of shame and begin to experience the kind of freedom the spiritual life is all about.

In case it's not clear, this prayer of Knowing has nothing to do with groveling or adding to our feelings of shame and worthlessness.  Rather, it's about knowing who we are -- all of who we are -- and recognizing that in this moment we are what we are ... a mixture of positives and negatives, weaknesses and strengths, things we're proud of and things we'd like to change.  Having grounded ourselves by naming all that is good in our lives, we have the context to fearless face the knowing of all that is not.

Next comes what I call prayers of Listening.  Every religious tradition we humans have ever created has had practices designed to help us quiet our inner monologues, let go of the cacophony which often surrounds us, and tune into what the Hebrew Scriptures call, "the still, small voice" of God. (The New International Version translates this as "gentle whisper," and a friend's direct translation is, "a voice of quiet stillness.")  Whether you call this meditation or contemplation, whether you think of it as listening for "the voice of God" or getting in tune with your own "inner wisdom," there is not a religious/spiritual tradition that does not advocate for developing a practice of silence and stillness.  And, so, after naming the ways life's beauty and goodness are manifested in our lives, and then fearlessly facing and knowing ourselves in our fullness, we are then prepared for some deep listening.

Coming out of this listening, we are then able to really engage in the prayer practices which some traditions call petition or supplication.  There are what I'll call "technical" differences between these two types of prayer, yet it seems to me that they boil down to prayers aimed at caring for others (and ourselves).  This could be asking "God" to help someone who's sick or going through a hard time, sending these people (or ourselves) "good vibes," or simply lifting them up for us to consciously and intentionally become aware of.  In short, I think of these as Loving prayers, the last of the four types of prayer that are incorporated in the prayer bead practice I developed and encouraged.

Next week I'll use another approach to explain the process of this practice.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

On Prayer

One of the words that often trips up the "spiritual but not religious" is:  prayer.  As with "God," many of us have grown up with very specific ideas of what "prayer" is, ideas taught to us in church -- either a specific faith community or the "secular church" of mainstream, popular media.  We've often been told that prayer is all about reaching out to "God" to ask for things (for ourselves or others), to express gratitude, or simply to give voice to our awe.  The wonderful author Anne Lamott summed up these modes of prayer in her book, Help, Thanks, Wow: the three essential prayers.

I've already written at some length about the problematic images many people have of "God," and how, when they reach a point of deciding that they can't believe in those images anymore, they close their eyes, minds, and hearts to any idea of "God" at all.  The same is often true with "prayer" as well.  Over the years I've talked with a great many people who've told me, essentially, "I was taught what prayer is.  What I was taught no longer makes sense to me.  Therefore, prayer no longer makes sense to me, and I don't 'believe' in it."

Yet even when a person discovers a new way of understanding what the word "God" might point to, the (let's call it) indoctrination on the subject of prayer is often extremely deeply rooted.  We don't know what to do with talk about prayer if the "God" we've come to understand is not that "God."

The 19th century historian, philosopher, and author Ernest Ranan offered one way of making a transition to a new understanding with what's come to be known as The Prayer of the Agnostic:  

O God, if there is a God, save my soul, if I have a soul. 

Others have suggested that we could see prayer not so much as talking to someone else, and more as talking to ourselves.  We could think of it as making us more conscious about, for instance, the needs of of another person, or our gratitude for the gifts we've been given.  Prayer is, then, not a means for making sure that some external "God" knows something.  This understanding of prayer is about making sure that we know it.

You could also think of payer as an exercise of our creative, spiritual imagination.  Those of us with pets talk to them all the time, yet we know that they can't really understand what we're saying.  Yet we essentially "pretend" that they can.  (Those of us with adolescent children often pretend that they are listening, too!)  We can think of prayer this way as well -- we can personify that "Sacred Something" and talk as if "it" can understand us.

This is not as ridiculous as it might seem.  Dreams aren't "real," as we usually define reality, yet often we can find in our dreams' imagery important insights that do effect our "real" lives.  And using the pet metaphor, many people can tel stories of how talking to their pet has helped them to work through a difficult decision or discover something they hadn't known.

In 2005 Skinner House Books published Simply Pray:  a modern spiritual practice to deepen your life.  In the next several posts I'll summarize some of what I cover in that book about the nature of prayer, and a practice which many have told me has been very powerful, whatever their beliefs might be.

Paxt tecum,

RevWik