prayer
Some quick thoughts as I synthesize Beck and Delio this morning...
Richard Beck has a post this week addressing “intellectual problems with petitionary prayer”, or to put the question another way: how does prayer “work”? He critiques a vision of God sitting at a distance from the world and being convinced to reach in and intervene in a Creation that otherwise ticks on autonomously. He calls this the “magic domino theory” - the idea that prayer is to get God to reach in and tip over the magic domino that knocks over other dominos to make things happen.
Beck’s latest book, as I understand it (having read his posts about it but not the book itself) argues for a re-enchanted view of the world. In this post he builds off of Gerard Manley Hopkins' line that “the world is charged with the grandeur of God”:
God isn’t at a distance. God’s energy and power suffuses creation. Creation isn’t ticking along autonomously, like a machine. Creation is alive and exists in an on-going radical dependence upon God. We are continuously bathed in God’s sustaining light and love, and should God ever look away from us we would cease to be.
Now I love this, but I am also internally screaming “but what does this really MEAN?” After a lifetime in fundamentalist evangelicalism being told to accept a broad disconnect between the reality of creation and the “mystery” of God in it, I need something more tangible.
This is where I appreciate being able to read Ilia Delio alongside Beck. Delio, I think, would agree with Beck’s vision of creation being imbued with God’s presence. But she would then start to talk about what that permeation might actually mean at a level of quantum mechanics. And this is so helpful to me because even though, to adapt Arthur C. Clarke, sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic, I need to at least conceptually be able to ground that “magic” (or to use Beck’s word, “enchanted”) view of God’s interaction with creation in the real, scientific world somehow.
And even though my understanding of quantum physics is quite limited, Delio’s push to bring theology into discussion with modern cosmology has been a key to my ability to stay within the stream of Christianity. I couldn’t deal any more with the disconnected, capricious, judgmental God that evangelicalism gave me. But that we could personify “God” as a conceptualization of the mysterious relational charge running through the fabric of the universe? That somehow uniquely enlightened and enlivened Jesus of Nazareth? That’s an approach that can unite my head and my heart as I (like everyone else) try to grapple with the mysteries of life.
You are always more ready to hear than we are to pray...
Wow, Proper 22 from the BCP this week:
Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us of those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worth to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Brian Zahnd's Prayer School
A month ago I had the opportunity to attend the Prayer School weekend taught by Brian Zahnd at Word of Life Church in St. Joseph, MO. I’ve intended to write up some thoughts on it ever since, but maybe it’s been good to let things percolate a little while first. So many thoughts.
First, a little bit about Brian, since it’s hard for me to separate him from the prayer school. I found Brian through his sermon podcast, which I’ve listened to fairly regularly for a little over a year now. His story includes planting a Pentecostal church in his 20s, seeing it grow successfully, hitting something of a mid-life faith crisis in his 40s, whereupon he took a harder, broader look at theology. His teaching retains pieces of his charismatic background while embracing liturgy (“good liturgy”, he would say), the Book of Common Prayer, pacifism, and a strong sense of progressive revelation. He details this story in his recent book Water to Wine, which I’d happily recommend as, if nothing else, a wonderful faith story.
In this post I’m going to share my thoughts directly about the prayer school; in a future post I want to follow up with a few thoughts about Zahnd and Word of Life church directly, since I got the feeling many attending, and probably many who have read his books or listened to the podcast, are curious about the man and his ministry.
Prayer School
[Initial note: Brian only teaches these classes in person - no recordings are distributed. He says he believes it’s something that should be passed along as ‘secrets’ from person to person. I’ll respect that and not go into tremendous detail. However, there’s nothing too unfamiliar there if you’ve listened to his podcast over the past year or so.]
Zahnd organizes the prayer school into three sessions, held Friday morning, Friday afternoon, and Saturday morning. (Word of Life Church holds a regular Friday night service which we were also encouraged to attend.) Through those sessions he teaches (and models) prayer not as “getting God to do what you want” but as a way to be “properly formed”.
He encourages the use of prayers that have been written through church history both as good prayers that allow us to learn from our forefathers, and as ways to teach us to pray better when we pray extemporaneously. Brian uses a musical metaphor likening these rote prayers to a guitarist practicing scales. You don’t always play just the scales, he says, but if you haven’t practiced your scales over and over, when you get to play the second verse guitar solo, you’re not gonna do very well.
In the final session Brian talks about contemplative prayer, which he likes to call “sitting with Jesus”. (He’s preached sermons with similar titles if you’re really curious.) For this topic he draws on a long line of contemplatives in the spirit of Thomas Merton.
The whole class is structured around a morning liturgy of prayer which he challenges everyone to try for 6 weeks. It includes daily Bible readings, weekly prayers from the BCP, rote prayers including that of St. Francis, and time for personal petition and contemplation.
Thoughts
A good bit of what drew me to attend the prayer school in the first place was this seemingly odd combination of liturgy, old prayers, and contemplation. What a mix! And in that I wasn’t disappointed. Zahnd is a talented teacher, though if I were going to try to describe his personality and approach I might start by referencing some Old Testament prophet instead of a teacher. There’s an air of confident, in-your-face declaration that was a bit of a shock to this guy who is used to long brainy sermons.
I really like the emphasis on using and learning from the prepared prayers. The Book of Common Prayer is full of beautiful language and really meaningful prayers and is a rich treasury that today’s church should draw on. (I’m a sucker for the musical metaphor, too.)
Zahnd makes a compelling case for using rote prayers from Acts 2:42, which in the NIV is translated
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
However, he points out, in the Greek it’s not “prayer” but “the prayers”, definite article, plural. (I looked it up in an interlinear online, and sure enough, he’s right.) And devoting one’s self to “the prayers” is a horse of a different color than “prayer”.
I haven’t done a very good job of taking up Pastor Brian’s six-week challenge so far. I’ve used the liturgy inconsistently a few times per week, often getting distracted by my schedule. However, I still feel the draw to use it more regularly, so I’m going to try to make it a priority. Where previously the idea of spending 20-30 minutes in prayer was incomprehensible to me - I’d be out of ideas after 5 minutes! - with this liturgy I can easily spend 20-30 minutes in reading and prayer, which is great. I just need to find a way to make it a habit.
There’s so much more I’d like to write but I’ll save it for a follow-up post.
May I go through the day calling on you
A beautiful prayer, credited only as an “Ethiopian Prayer”, from today’s noon-time reading in Phyllis Tickle’s The Divine Hours:
God, you have prepared in peace the path I must follow today. Help me to walk straight on that path. If I speak, remove lies from my lips. If I am hungry, take away from me all complaint. If I have plenty, destroy pride in me. May I go through the day calling on you, you, O Lord, who know no other Lord.
Amen.
St. Thomas More's Prayer for Good Humor
I ran across this fantastic prayer this morning in a story about Pope Francis. (Reportedly the Pope prays this prayer daily.) It’s beautiful, funny, and practical all in one.
Prayer for Good Humor
Grant me, O Lord, good digestion, and also something to digest. Grant me a healthy body, and the necessary good humor to maintain it. Grant me a simple soul that knows to treasure all that is good and that doesn’t frighten easily at the sight of evil, but rather finds the means to put things back in their place. Give me a soul that knows not boredom, grumblings, sighs and laments, nor excess of stress, because of that obstructing thing called “I.” Grant me, O Lord, a sense of good humor. Allow me the grace to be able to take a joke to discover in life a bit of joy, and to be able to share it with others. -St. Thomas More, Chancellor to King Henry VIII