(Re-)Learning to Pray

I have long hated prayer.  I grew up in a home where prayer was taught in one of two ways.  You could close your eyes, and speak in words to God, often following a prayer book, or keeping a journal to make sure you hit all the important points and people.  In groups, you could pray, or more precisely worship, by speaking in tongues.  You didn't know what you were saying, and what you were actually praying for which seemed to take out the portion of prayer which is intentional (considered in the wordy prayer I was taught to be very important).  It seemed to be a sweeping, not of God, but of camp - of theatre.  In the case of sitting down to pray, in words, on a schedule, well, to be honest, I just feel silly.  I don't know how else to explain it.

As an adult I would be asked about my prayer life, and because, although I have always been deeply spiritual, I have felt so very remiss in my prayer life because these two forms were not useful to me.  What I have learned is that I am not a kapothatic pray-er - I don't pray in word form - and that my experience with praying in tongues (usual in revival style meetings) is not uncommon.  It can be theatrical.  It can be, God forbid, competitive.  This isn't to say it has to be, only that it can.

I am, as it turns out, an apothatic pray-er.  I pray in quiet, and in feeling, and in images.  On my own, I have been learning how different traditions include both forms of prayer, though some focus more on one than on the other.  In Christianity, I have been blessed to learn of the great history of Christian mysticism centred on apothatic experiences of communion with God.  Though it is useful to many "Our Father, Who art in Heaven..." is not a be all and end all, a perfect prescription for how every person will pray.  It is just as prayerful to "Be still and know that I am God," to empty and open ourselves to the extraordinary fullness of our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.

My Lead Pastor is on sabbatical, and the Minister in his place, one of our Ministers for Adult Faith Formation, has been bringing into our services the more Wesleyan, Reformed liturgy of her native Methodism.  I've been struggling with this because we are including more spoken prayers, the service structured around our confession, and vocalised communion, and for me, this ritual is... taxing.  Today though, during the sermon, she spoke of something else, of being lost in a moment during which Grace happens.  That makes sense to me.  I am learning though, that when I close my eyes, when I hear the prayers spoken by the congregation, but don't stop to read and speak, concentrating on the act of speaking, I can gain some comfort from the spoken liturgy as well.  I can open a space, a moment, in which Grace can work, even though the prayers take the form of specific words.

I am no learning to relabel other spiritual disciplines as "prayer."  Meditation, centering prayer, chant, walking and simply being in Creation, anything where I am open to the wonder of God, is prayer.  Prayer is simply knowingly, being with God, and being in the same room as someone else, is being with them nonetheless. And now I wonder, if I know that my most intimate moments with my husband do not involve words, but merely being held by him, in love, why would I think that there could be no intimacy with God, without words either? Why did I think that wordless communion was somehow less?  Because I hadn't been taught otherwise, so now, I'm learning.