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Sparkle (0)
I pray. I travel in circles where not everyone prays, and where some people may even think it is a foolish thing to do. I tend to not discuss it a great deal, not wanting to be pushy about it. But I feel that prayer has value. I don't examine it, dissect it, or wait for a time when it is entirely clear to me what spiritual path my prayer will take.
I just hunker down and pray.
God and I get very conversational. I thank God for events, people, things, circumstances. I tell God things -- the bursting-over-the-soul pains and hopes, the wishes, the deepest dreams. Telling God is one step closer to telling them out loud to the world, to you.
And I ask God for things -- well, usually not things, but for changes -- changes to people's health so that they become well, changes to my own health or mood or condition, changes to the world like peace, understanding, an end to global warming.
I don't usually end up thinking "Aha, there, I've said it -- on to other things." Often prayer reminds me of what *I* need to do. I pray for my own wellness and realize the things that I have to do to move myself there. I pray for peace and am reminded of things I can do to help make that happen.
But what about praying for others? I do that a lot. I'll even read stories out here, or on other blogs and find myself lifting someone in prayer. I imagine just that -- lifting them up and holding them in front of God. "Look, God," I say."See this person? Help them!"
Sometimes I get pushy with God - asking him over and over to help someone, or to help me. But I am cheered by the story in Luke 18 about the unjust judge and the widow. Do you know that tale? Well, gather around and I'll tell you.
There were rules in ancient Israel about how widows were to be treated and cared for. If things went wrong, the widow could take the matter before a judge. There was a window who did just that, Luke tells us. And the judge ignored her, busying himself with other things. After all, the widow wasn't a hot-shot. She was just a woman without a man, hardly a maker and shaker in old Israel. And he was unjust, a judge that looked past his obligations to her. But she kept at it, pestering him, imploring him, demanding his attention for her case. She was relentless. Finally, he gave in,heard her case and found in her favor. She had worn him down, worn him out and secured his attention.
Luke tells us that is how we are to pray -- relentlessly, persistently, telling us that we should look at what the woman achieved, and take into account that that was from an unjust and uncaring judge. How much more is possible with a loving God, says Luke.
So, I have been known to nudge God, tugging at his eternal sleeve over and over. If I had prayed at the Wailing Wall, I would left thousands of scraps of papers there, wedged into the spaces between stones, with thousands of names on them. Or maybe just with the word "please" over and over.
The Chabad.org site describes why we pray:
We pray because our body requires nourishment, health, safety, comfort. We pray to acknowledge our dependency upon, our appreciation of, and our gratitude to the Source of all the needs, joys and achievements of life.
We pray because our soul is lonely. A spark of the Divine fire, it has journeyed to a world heavy and dark with "matter" -- with things, forces and objects that shout forth their own reality, obfuscating their Source. So the spark yearns for the fire and strives to become reabsorbed in it. Eagerly it awaits the times set aside for prayer -- those precious daily moments when the person it inhabits ceases to commune with the world and communes with his or her Creator.
I don't always know what it means when my prayers are not answered. Is it that I have been ignored? Is that I have misinterpreted what prayers are for? Am I hearing a No, a Not Now or is it just the air that says Nothing. Or is the point of prayer to send
