Bird of Pray

‘Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them…

… ‘And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward…

                                                            -- Jesus on prayer, Matthew 6

In my private prayers these days, often as not, there are no words involved, but an awareness of vibration in me and in the room, on the plain, under the stars…wherever it is I find myself opening to the One. It is good.

In my private prayers of other days, and quite possibly those of days to come, it was more of a conversation with God. I’d listen. I’d speak my mind. I’d listen again. It is good.

This Sunday I am preaching on prayer. This is a unique challenge in a congregation as varied as mine. There will be some listening who barely pray at all, and others who have full, rich prayer lives beyond anything I can imagine. Some no doubt prattle to God like they’re sitting on Santa’s knee, some confide over coffee at the kitchen table, others will be mindful of chakras and life energy. And there will be many others at myriad points on that circle. It is good.

I will try to impress upon all gathered that effective prayer changes things. Of course, it changes us, and how we relate in God to the world around us. It also changes that world.

Jesus warns us not to turn prayer into a public spectacle in which we crave outward approval more than inner communication with God. At the same time, as a pastor, I am often called to public prayer. How do I reconcile these potentially divergent realities?

Poet Andrea Gibson, in her piece Say Yes, sites a phenomenon: When there are two fine violins in a room, and one is strummed or bowed, the second will hum in sympathetic vibration.

Yesterday I prayed at the hospital bed of a dear friend who has suffered a stroke. Her daughter, husband, a close friend and I gathered around her. She was worn out from a day of re-learning how to talk and use her right arm and leg. She is all there, but is locked in a great struggle to find words and shape them. We all closed our eyes and I simply acknowledged God and shared love there among us. I prayed for courage, strength and continued progress. I prayed in gratitude for the miracle of medical science.  Then, after a moment's silence, I started up the Lord’s Prayer, which she has known since childhood. I opened my eyes to watch her and saw that the other three did the same. Only my slowly recovering friend kept her eyes firmly shut, and sure enough, her lips were moving along with us.

Now, for all I know, she may have been saying “Our flounder who’s sparks with Kevin,” but the cadence was there, the vibration was sympathetic in all of us. The words themselves ceased to matter. We all felt the presence and the lift, and it was good.

That is what I like public prayer to be: intimate for five or 500.  I like it to resonate not with my words, but with Presence and Love and any other name we have for God.

For a bird to fly, the air above its wing must move on more quickly than the air beneath. In doing so, the air thins out so there is less of it. For prayer to work, there must be more raising us up than there is holding us down.

When I tell you now that I want to be a bird of pray, this is what I mean.