Finding a new way to pray

You know you need to pray. You know you’re supposed to pray. You know that praying should be easy – it’s just “talking to God,” right?

Then why is it SO HARD? And why don’t we spend more time doing it?

Coming from a Protestant Evangelical background, I spiritually grew up with spontaneous, verbalized prayers and a lot of “unspoken” prayer requests. The prayers always started with “Dear God” or “Dear Heavenly Father” and ended with “In Jesus’ name, we pray, Amen.” We were all given a general “formula” of confession, praise, thanksgiving, requests. It was great. It was satisfying. It was effective….

Until it wasn’t.

I reached a point where I got bored with prayer. I enjoyed praying with other people but doing it at home on my own? I totally fell back on the quick rushed & hushed prayers said as we drove off on a long road trip; or as I stood seething at my children, throwing up a quick request for patience; or talking to a friend and sending a quick note up to Heaven to please help them. Yes, I was praying but there was not usually much life in it. It often felt cursory and a little like I was doing it because I knew I should. Like brushing my teeth: it helps maintain things but it’s not enjoyable or life-giving.

Occasionally, during intense moments of worship/singing, prayer would come non-stop, words pouring out of my mouth like an unstopped water fountain flowing without purpose or pause. That always left me feeling pretty great for a while.

Ignatian Prayer

Earlier this year, a friend suggested I read some of the desert/early church fathers. I stumbled upon St. Ignatius and found this term “Igantian prayer.” Curious, I read more… The book Prayer and Temperment summarizes it like this, “The Ignatian method is to place oneself in the Biblical scene and to become a part of it by way of imagination. Ignatius suggests that we try to imagine what we might see, what we might hear, and what the persons in the scene might be doing.” When I came across this way of praying, I laughed out loud. This is one of my primary ways of studying the Bible… and it’s also a method of prayer?!?!?! I never saw it that way, but the book gives a great foundation for it:

“This way of praying was used by the Israelites a thousand to twelve hundred years before the birth of Christ. Its basic trait is the remembrance of an event of salvation history. This commemoration, however, is more than a pious recalling of an event which occurred many years previously; for by immersion in its recollection, the praying people relive, participate in, and in a symbolic way make real the past events.” (pg. 46).

It reminds me of some of the OT accounts, like Psalm 78 where there is a lengthy recall of God’s provision for the Israelites. It also made me think of this post I wrote on Matthew.

Surprised that I had never before heard of “praying” this way, I started looking into other ways of prayer. (I’m sure all the Catholics are laughing right now…) I knew about “canned” prayers, of course: Those seemingly rote, repeated prayers that were written by someone else. The only ones we ever said in my childhood baptist church were the Lord’s Prayer and Psalm 23. In the last few years, I discovered “The Valley of Vision” and have loved the deeply personal and vivid language used there, though, lately, I struggle with some of the theology (but that’s for another post!)

Lectio Divina

There is also lectio divina which is widely used in liturgical churches of every tradition. Briefly, this is where (in some order) you read a short passage of scripture, meditate on a word or phrase that catches your attention, respond to God’s movement on your heart and mind with regards to that word/phrase, and then end with contemplation – sitting still and quiet before Him. This is known to be a Benedictine practice and is still observed regularly at Benedictine Monasteries. I love how Carthusian Prior Guigo II (12th century) explained it, “Reading, you should seek; meditating, you will find; praying, you shall call; and, contemplating, the door will be opened to you.”

Augustinian Prayer

Another method of prayer is known as the “Augustinian prayer,” named of course after St. Augustine, one of the best known early church fathers. Prayer and Temperment described this method as using your creative imagination “to transpose the words of Sacred Scripture to our situation today. One tries to imagine/intuit what meaning the words of scripture would have if Jesus Christ or God the Father or the Holy Spirit appeared and spoke them to us at this moment” (pg. 58). You imagine that scripture is a personal letter from God, written specifically to you. I think this is probably the one I am most familiar with: Reading psalms for comfort, reading the words of Jesus as though meant for me… I think this one comes naturally for many people as we all generally go to scripture hoping God will apply His words to our lives – “What do these words mean to me in my present situation?” This kind of prayer works well combined with the four steps of lectio divina though it may also feel a little risky to some. I know a lot of evangelicals get antsy and uncomfortable when you bypass the historical and contextual meaning of a passage. But, if this is you, I’d encourage you to try it! Just because something is different or weird doesn’t mean it’s wrong. You need to use discernment and not get caught up in assuming your interpretation of something is truth or that you need to act on it, but at least give God a chance to speak to you in a new way.

Centering Prayer

Recently, I had to have emergency surgery for an acute case of appendecitis. For a few hours, though, I worried that it might be something more. My dad died of pancreatic cancer in 2004 and, as I get older, I fear that I will somehow end up the same way. So, as I waited for my CT scan, I struggled to control my anxious thoughts.

Enter: centering prayer.

Centering prayer is a fairly new concept for me, but I am so thankful for it. In her book Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, Cynthia Bourgeault describes it like this:

“It’s very, very simple. You sit, either in a chair or on a prayer stool or a mat {or the floor!}, and allow your heart to open toward that invisible but always present Origin of all that exists. Whenever a thought comes into your mind, you simply let the thought go and return to that open, silent attending upon the depths…You use a short word or phrase, known as a ‘sacred word’… to help you let go of the thought promptly and cleanly. You do this practice for twenty minutes, a bit longer if you’d like, then you simply get up and move on with your life.”

Fortunately, she also notes, “Your own subjective experience of the prayer may be that nothing happened – except for the more-or-less continuous motion of letting go of thoughts. But in the depths of your being, in fact, plenty has been going on and things are quietly but firmly being rearranged.”

Lest you think that centering prayer is some new-agey juju, listen to this similar description from the 14th-century author of The Cloud of Unknowing (note: I have changed the thees/thous and cumbersome ancient language for you, you’re welcome!):

“Lift up your heart unto God with a meek stirring of love; and mean God that made you, and bought you, and that has graciously called you to your degree, and {consider} no other thought of God…{except} … a naked intent direct unto God without any other {aim} than Himself.

“And if you {get distracted}, have this intent lapped and folden in one word, so that {you can better grasp hold of it}; take but a little word of one syllable, for so it is better than of two, {because} the shorter it is, the better it accords with the work of the Spirit. {For example}, the word GOD or this word LOVE. Choose {whatever word you want, of one syllable} … and fasten this word to your heart … If {you become distracted with any other thought}, answer {that thought} only with this one word.”

Last year, had I been in the ER, my mind would have been racing. I would have been spewing words, muttering fervent pleas and begging for mercy. My anxiety would have fueled chaotic prayers, which, in turn, would have fed my fear. But this time, I sat in the ER and turned to my sacred word “Peace.” I breathed deep and repeated the word until I could let go of the crazy thoughts spinning in my head. As Bourgeault says, “the goal in centering prayer is not to stop the thoughts but to develop a detached attitude toward them.”

Since I started this practice of silence, this way of prayer has provided so much grace for me. It is so refreshing to just rest in the presence of God. It’s made me recognize that there was so much striving in my earlier prayer life. As a working, homeschooling mom of three little boys, this time in stillness, not doing, just being, gives me LIFE. In this season – when my world is full of so much busyness and noise – spending even just a few moments surrendering my thoughts and centering my mind on God has deepened and filled my spiritual well. I now look forward to my time of prayer and it feels more like satisfying an intense craving of the soul than anything else.

Prayer must lead us beyond mind, words and ideas to a more spacious place where God has a chance to get in.

Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer ~ Richard Rohr, pg. 149

Breaking free of the familiar

Trying something new can be a little scary and uncomfortable. Especially if you’ve only experienced one way of praying, it can feel weird or almost forbidden to try another approach. But real spiritual growth comes when you challenge the status quo, when you step out of your comfort zone and make friends with your fear. Jesus did not call his followers to the same old ways of doing things. He pushed the boundaries, He showed them new ways of being. God is not bound by language or time or place. He is still there whether you are sitting in silence or down on bended knees or prostrate on the floor or scouring the Bible for a fresh word. He hears your heart, whether you are imagining a scene like Ignatius, meditating on a passage in lectio divina, desperately seeking comfort like Augustine, or surrendering to stillness in centered prayer.

Researching other approaches to prayer has been eye-opening and soul-opening for me. I hope it will offer the same freedom to you.

Let me know if you try a new way to pray.