“Prayer is the most important thing in my life. If I should neglect it for a single day, I should lose a great deal of the fire of faith.” Martin Luther

“I have so much to do that I must spend several hours in prayer before I am able to do it.” John Wesley

“But before all things, it is good to begin with prayer, and thereby give ourselves up to, and uniting ourselves with, God.” Pseudo-Dionysius

          

       Prayer for many of us is something of a puzzle. A little like sending a letter to an unknown address, we may not be sure of its value. What’s more, there is a certain embarrassment that may go with it. Closing our eyes and saying something to someone who isn’t actually physically with us may seem a little childish and unbecoming for rational adults.  Finally, quotations from the saints which enthuse about the virtues of prayer, as if it were the most important thing in life, may make the saints seem a bit sanctimonious and us to feel a bit inadequate. Did Luther really never neglect prayer for a single day? Did Wesley really think that the more things you have to do in a given day the more hours you should give to prayer in preparation for those things? These are hard role models to follow.

          

     The truth is that sometimes prayer feels a little like we are talking to ourselves. We cannot be sure that anyone else is listening and indeed sometimes, in the midst of it, we may be pretty sure that no one else is. However, what if there is something good even in this notion that at prayer we are talking to ourselves; let us say to our best selves. What if prayer is, at least in part, about having a spirited conversation with our best selves which reminds, challenges and illuminates us with those virtues and values which make life worth living? Conversations like these are necessary and good for us all. They are an opportunity not only to face up to our short comings, but to broaden our horizons, think of others, and remember the indomitable grace in which we are all held.  These conversations remind us of all that we have to be thankful for, of the kind of world we want to build, and of the kind of path that we are called to walk.  And what if, when these spirited conversations with ourselves are good and honest, we feel enabled to see further and stand taller? Then, we may feel that something more has happened, and that somehow a bigger conversation has taken place, which hints at the presence of another and points in the direction of grace. And could it be that God is very much present in these conversations not  because He is, as it were,  up in the sky somewhere listening via satellite, but because He is  an irrevocable part of  who we are, in those best selves which we are, at prayer, seeking to bring to the surface?

          

        Anyway, some of you have already heard how, when we were in the South of France this past summer, I had a special moment when I partook in just this kind of spirited conversation.  One day at 7:00 o’clock in the morning, I got out of bed to stand behind my brother-in-law’s farm house. The sun was shining, the sunflowers and corn stalks were standing tall, and the fields were alive with the sounds of fifteen or twenty roosters proclaiming a new day.  I was aware that my holiday was almost over, that leisure would soon be giving way to employment, and that, with September, I was going to have to face considerable challenges in the Church and in my own life, but there and then I had that spirited conversation. As the roosters crowed, sang, and proclaimed I said to myself, “Wake up. It is a new magnificent day. The fields are alive with a choir of cockerels. The world is once again at the beginning of something great. This is the day that the Lord has made. Rejoice and be glad in it!” And at that moment, there was for me a kind of “standing taller” and “seeing further” that hinted at the presence of another and pointed in the direction of grace; the same grace that gives us the power to face and do all that is required.

 

Bring on September!

 

In Christ, Blair

September & October

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