We are all spiritually hungry, and some of us are starving, as evidenced by the huge market for the nearly four hundred books written on the subject of prayer every year in the U.S. alone. We crave substantial nourishment—a source of food for the inner systems that don't get fed by meat or potatoes… Truth is that food. The pure reality of life, just as it is, is that food. Praying involves us in all phases of this food cycle—the planting, the waiting, the pruning, the harvesting, the cooking and the eating… ultimately the communion with That which we know, intuitively, will complete us, although we may have no words for this. (xi)
What prayer actually is cannot be written. And all the words you will read about prayer, here or anywhere, are worth nothing unless you put the books down and begin to live out what you ache to live, and what the words are inviting…
You may find yourself hungering for the communion that you know is possible through prayer, yet that communion eludes you. You find yourself jealous of those who seem to have accomplished something in the domain of prayer, and wonder how they managed it. Comparing yourself to these others, you may be disheartened. You aren't getting the results that the books promise, or at least point to. So, mired in the labyrinth of mind, you might be tempted to throw the baby out with the bath water. You may decide to skip the whole thing.
On the other hand… you may decide that you are going to get the goods, no matter what, as if prayer were some contest.
Either way, however, you lose—which is not to say don't attempt. Everybody loses a lot on this path… (xvi) …this process of prayer in which we are engaged must be appreciated as a sojourn into a mystery, into a domain that is boggling to the mind and necessarily so…. We live out the journey of prayer. (xvii)
A father and mother pray for the safety of their soldier daughter only to receive the news that she was killed by friendly fire. A patient prays for a good test result only to be told it is a chronic condition. A bowler prays for a strike that turns into a 7-10 split. Loved ones prays for a miracle while sitting vigil by the one dying before them.
Every moment of every day a prayer somewhere seems to go unanswered or is met with unexpected circumstances, unimagined results. Somewhere else a prayer seems to be answered. One cannot know if more prayers go unanswered than answered, or even if that is a proper way to measure prayer… but it is what people look for and what has caused much joy and anguish, sense of safety and vulnerable dread.
When we reach out in desperation or need, in grief or compassion and feel there is no response to our longing we can find the emptiness hard to bear. When things seem to be going well for others yet we, in all earnest, are met with heartbreak, the loneliness can weigh heavily on us. When we're told that all things come to those who wait or "ask and ye shall receive," but find the results wanting, the frustration can lead us to cynical isolation, self pity or deep fatigue.
There are many explanations given for unanswered prayers. I'm sure most of you have heard them. "Sometimes the answer is no," one might offer. "You don't have enough faith," another may argue. "You didn't ask in the right way," an earnest seeker may reply. "It is important to suffer for God," an indoctrinated zealot might affirm. "What did you expect?" one may comment, "there's no one listening." "There was an answer," another might reprimand, "but you weren't listening."
Most of these answers, of course, console the person who is trying to offer an explanation, not the one bereft of hope. It is hard to feel out of sync with the universe—out of control of our days—so we find a way to explain away the emptiness that comes from reaching out and finding no one or nothing there. "Something must be wrong with the way you did it," comes the defense, "or with what you asked for, or what you expect."
And there is some truth to all that because we often assume that something is wrong when we do not get our way, when, in fact, "getting our way" is not the point of prayer.
Prayer is not a command in control of our journey. It is a discipline to be present in our journey. Prayer is not an orchestration of the way things should be but a participation in the way things are. Prayer is not an acquisition of goods and services but an affirmation of what's good and serves. Prayer is not a competition or reward but an opening of heart to wholeness and equanimity.
Prayer is such a loaded word to some, and such a companion of life to others. The description of prayer is vast and varied. We can hear mystics and scientists, people who love, people who doubt, poets and scribes talk of prayer and how it counsels their lives. Often those who reject the concept of prayer outright have chosen to give over the definition to a particular dogmatic view that they reject and so shun the word and process of prayer because of someone else's claim of its meaning.
There are some who do, indeed, diminish the possibilities of prayer by locking it into determined formulas without opening to creativity, spontaneity, flexible god imaging or metaphor. One can have a favorite prayer or a daily ritual prayer, but as soon as it is believed to be the only proper prayer, its healing power diminishes, it becomes stagnant in the merely human estimation of the connection to that which is eternal and ever changing. Prayer is meant to open us to possibility and gratitude. If prayer is used to diminish another or shut down life it has no interdependent truth.
So, then, what is this prayer I speak of? Basically, it is an opening to presence, a tuning into the life source within that resonates with all of life. Prayer is a giving over of the moment to a focus of the moment. It is an affirmation of our expanded self, our resonance with all of life. It is an engagement of our energy, our potential, as it relates to other energy, other potential.
Prayer can be done through the word, with the body, in the breath. It can be known within laughter and tears, anger and remorse, work and stillness. It is applying who we are, claiming what we resonate, connecting with our being. It is a re-membering of the larger source of life of which we are a part. And that larger souce has many names, but one resonance—authenticity and a willingness for harmony.
"Your cravings as a human animal do not become a prayer," Dag Hammarskjold once remarked, "just because it is God whom you ask to attend to them."1
Unanswered prayers, though often difficult to endure, can tender us into a larger perspective and a vulnerable knowing that reminds us, as Joy Harjo once wrote, "to take the utmost care and kindness in all things." (Eagle Poem)
When I was sitting by the bedside of my good friend dying of AIDS at 35 years old, full of life's potential, no amount of praying could stop the disease's outcome. The dread of helplessness, the weakened faith in the power of love, was hard to bear. But when I lifted my focus away from what I could not have to what was before me, I knew that I was not alone, and that life had a fullness beyond what I was presently feeling. It wasn't a time to make sense of things, it was a time to be present in every moment. It wasn't a time to rail against my lack of control, but a time to embrace the love in the room. And my friend's unanswered prayers did not diminish his worth. The energy of his life permeates still—20 years later—in those who loved him and in the art of his life, shared in its brief fullness. The signature of being remains in ways that we cannot fully know. Our prayers, our authentic longing permeates in ways that we cannot fully know.
We haven't the capacity to fully know what dwells beyond our senses and in all things… but we do have the capacity to be in full relationship with it.
Prayer helps us practice that relationship. It tends it, minds it, inspires it, enfolds it, empowers it, embraces it.
A gardener, digging hands deep in the soil with gratitude and wonder, sends out a prayerful intention as powerful as any utterance. An artist, giving heart and mind to connect with meaning and relate its worth offers a prayerful reminder to pay attention. The cry of pain and longing in war-ravaged poverty can send a shiver throughout the world as powerfully as any prayerful petition.
Breaking out of the isolation of our despair takes a leap of faith, a belief that there is more present in reality than what we are feeling. It takes a leap of faith to find connections and welcome unrealized possibilities. When we take that leap, we are in a state of prayer. When we take that leap we are inviting a sense of our ground within the great web of being.
"Look for the answer to prayer not in what you get," comments Rabbi Chaim Stern, "but in what you become."
Prayer is about letting go of control and taking charge of our own response-ability. It is about setting energy in motion. The consequence of our prayer is not predictable, the energy of the request or suggestion filters out beyond our detection. But the consequence is not the point of the prayer, the preparation of heart and mind, the opening of spirit, the readiness for transformation is the point of the prayer. The act of praying with full intent—claiming the connection—is what reverberates and heals in ways that we may not understand.
"What I have noticed in my small world," wrote Alice Walker, "is that if I praise the wildflowers growing on the hill in front of my house, the following year they double in profusion and brilliance. If I admire the squirrel that swings from branch to branch outside my window, pretty soon I have three or four squirrels to admire…. The Universe responds. What you ask of it, it gives…. Peace will come wherever it is sincerely invited. Love will overflow every sanctuary given it."2
We know that we have energy within us, that, indeed, it powers our being in the world. This energy communicates beyond our physical being. We can sense it in our reaction to one another. We send out anger and cause fear or retreat. We send out love and generate well being. (We send out emotional and energetic messages all the time and these messages affect our world.) Prayer is intentional direction of our energy.
When we consider the effect of prayer on the civil rights movement, how gathering to pray before a demonstration gave people strength to withstand ridicule, goading, physical attacks and emotional degradation because of their focused intention on an expanded freedom of being, we can understand how powerful shared energy can be.
But we cannot assume that all prayers should be answered according to our guidelines. For we then would feel abandoned by tragedies that do not heal quickly enough or betrayed when a loved one dies even amidst our pleas for more time. If we expect constant attention and affection that we can identify, then we will feel cheated when our hard work does not meet our expectations, or when the road is rougher than we think we 'deserve'.
Unanswered prayers can give us pause to wonder whether we are in tune with the interdependent life about us. Perhaps there is more than meets the eye. Perhaps it is someone else's turn to come to fruition. Perhaps we are finding our way despite our orchestrated moves. Perhaps we are merely a part of the universe and not the center of it. When we pray to fill our lives with what we think we do not have, then we will, more often than not, be disappointed. When we pray to re-member our harmony with life and intend to pay attention, then we will find life in abundance.
[ The following was an exercise done with the congregation. ]
There are ways that we can come to this, and unanswered prayers sometimes give us the encouragement we need. When in a place of scarcity, not getting what we want, we are called to the discipline of gratitude, and to want what we have.
Try it for a moment…etc. (lift up aspects of your life that you are grateful for) When we are in a place of protest, when something is happening that we do not want to happen, we are called to the discipline of acceptance and a readiness to understand.
Try it for a moment…etc. (hold person or situation in a bubble, tenderly intend harmony) When we are in a place of despair, not knowing which way to turn, we are called to the discipline of breath, sensing the embrace of the eternal.
Try it for a moment…etc. (get in touch with breath then direct thoughts to sky and the expanse of which you are a part)
May we hold each other dear in this gathering community, for there in we will find the inspiration to field, release and transform unanswered prayers.
Amen.
Copyright © 2010 Lisa Ward. All Rights Reserved.