Prayer

I went to a Lutheran church on Sunday and the minister’s sermon was about prayer. I was raised on prayer. It is the part of my early faith that I keep with me and treasure the most. In my mind’s eye, I can see my father rising early to pray before breakfast followed by work. The door to his room was shut, but I imagined him on his knees for that is the way I believed he prayed. To me prayer is private, profound and very powerful. My father had a love for prayer and I share this. Prayer is also related to communities of worship and can be both formal and spontaneous.

The minister also spoke of our desires in prayer. What about answers, being changed by prayer, and what happens when there is no answer? These are tough questions that remind us that prayer is not necessarily about what we want, but rather about being willing to be shaped by the God who loves and cares for us. We are in the hands of God when we pray. That can be both good and terrifying. Sometimes it is only in looking back, that we can discern an answer to our prayers.

One can pray any time in the day or night. Islam has 5 distinct times to pray. Monks pray the Eight canonical hours. I am accustomed to the Morning and Evening Prayer Hours in the Anglican and Episcopal tradition. There are formal prayers for these services, but one can also improvise. My favorite way to pray is to get down on my knees and pray for the world–refugees and those who are hungry & sick, my family, and all animals wherever they are.

As we approach this Sunday which is St. Francis Day and the Blessing of the Animals we will see all animals large and small blessed. We remember the tiny owl above and her journey to NYC hidden in the Rockefeller Christmas Tree. She was injured and then healed. I think of the owl and her “knitted sweater.” Prayer is how we knit our life to God and the world.

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

—Mary Oliver