Liberating Prayer: Examining Four Half-Truths

This blog post is the first in a series of three posts inspired by the most popular post from the archive of 99Brattle, “Do Progressive Christians Pray?” by Chris Glaser, published two years ago this week. We will publish the next installment of this series next week and the third installment the following week.

The Rev. Dr. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas will be participating on a panel entitled “Faith and Environmental Justice” during “Religion in the Public Sphere” which takes place at EDS on May 8-9, 2013.

By the Rev. Dr. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas ’88

At its best, prayer is vital, lively, even wild, setting us free for intimate encounter with the Divine, who is always new. But our notions of prayer can be so small!  Prayer can be hobbled by misconceptions and half-truths that prevent us from experiencing our soul’s freedom in Christ (Galatians 5:1). That was certainly the case for me, and over the years my ideas about prayer—and my way of praying—have radically changed. There are many half-truths about prayer, and here is a starter list of four. Each statement contains elements of truth, but needs to be dismantled and expanded if we’re hoping for a breakthrough in prayer.

1.    Prayer is full of words. 

Yes, Christians are people of the Book, and we trust the Word of God. Elegant words honed over centuries can convey God’s presence, connect us with the faithful of every generation, and articulate thoughts that give comfort with their accuracy and beauty. When we’re flailing around in prayer, not sure how to begin, reading someone else’s words can help to settle the mind and open the heart.

But prayer is much more than words. Prayer can be expressed as a sigh, as a sob, as laughter, and especially as silence. It is only when our minds grow quiet and we touch the silence that lies within, beneath, and beyond words, that many of us can sense the living Presence of God. As the 14^th century Dominican mystic, Meister Eckhart, put it, “There is nothing so much like God as silence.”

2.   Prayer is polite.

Yes, we approach the living Mystery with reverence and awe. Honest prayer is never off-hand, slapdash, or casual.

But let’s not limit our prayer to sharing only our “best” selves, our noblest thoughts and warmest feelings! What if God wants to encounter who you really are—not just the self you wish you were? C.S. Lewis wisely counseled: “The prayer preceding all prayers is ‘May it be the real I who speaks.  May it be the real Thou that I speak to.’” Our intention in prayer is to be our real selves and to encounter the real God. As in any relationship, intimacy with God depends on our being willing to be vulnerable and real, not just formal and polite. I like to imagine God whispering in our ear as we sit down to pray, “Get real!”

3.   Prayer is peaceful. 

Yes, taking regular time to pray can help us to discover within ourselves a place of deep stillness. Even in the midst of a hectic, fast-paced world, we can learn through prayer how to stay inwardly steady. “Never fail, whatever may befall you, be it good or bad, to keep the heart quiet and calm in the tenderness of love,” wrote the 16^th century mystic, St. John of the Cross. Equanimity and balance are often a fruit of prayer.

Yet prayer also releases deep feelings, memories, and energies. Prayer can be as turbulent as a storm, as fierce as a wrestling match. If we consider God a friend, someone who welcomes and loves us, just as we are, then we can explore whatever arises in prayer, without trying to control or dominate the process. 

4.  Prayer is a luxury. 

We all know the argument: in a world full of hunger, poverty, and pain, prayer can become an escape, a self-centered, bourgeois, navel-gazing enterprise in which “spiritual” types focus on cultivating their inward garden and ignore the suffering around them. Prayer becomes an exit strategy, a way to hide out.

But when prayer draws us into the heart of God, we discover that the whole world is there, too. We awaken to the divine love that embraces, sustains, and infuses all things. True prayer is subversive to the powers-that-be within the self, for it dethrones the reign of the ego. True prayer is also subversive to the powers-that-be beyond the self, for it sends us out into the world to bear witness to the love that has found and formed us. The mystic becomes a prophet. Prayer is an ongoing source of energy and hope to all whose faith urges us to heal and transform the world. And prayer purifies and prunes our intentions, so that the search for justice is not converted into and reduced to just another ego-project.

The Rev. Dr. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas (MDiv ’88) taught courses on prayer at Episcopal Divinity School for many years. She now serves as Priest Associate of Grace Church, Amherst, MA. A retreat leader, writer, and climate activist, her latest book is Joy of Heaven, to Earth Come Down (Forward Movement, 2012). You can learn more at her website: www.holyhunger.org.

Copyright © by Margaret Bullitt-Jonas.  All rights reserved.

Climate Change and Christian Faith

By Kwok Pui Lan

Today, the National Religious Coalition on Creation Care is convening a conference on “Scientific, Religious, and Cultural Implications of Global Warming” at Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Washington, DC. 

 Blessing of the Watertown Community Garden
on June 12, 2011.

This climate summit will bring together activists, scholars, scientists, and religious leaders to explore strategies to prevent the impacts of global warming. Renowned climatologist Dr. James Hansen, environmentalist Bill McKibben, Fr. Michael Oleksa of Alaska, and Brigadier General Steven Anderson, US Army (ret.) will be among the speakers.

The Rev. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas, MDiv, EDS ’88, has been invited to speak about the Episcopal Church’s response to climate change. She is a long-time environmental activist and was the principal author of the Pastoral Letter, “To Serve Christ in All Creation,” issued by the Episcopal Bishops of New England in 2003. She has been a leader in Religious Witness for the Earth and is priest associate at Grace Church in Amherst, Massachusetts. 

Christian theologians have increasingly paid attention to the challenges of climate change. Sallie McFague, an Episcopalian, is a leading figure in ecological theology. She has published A New Climate for Theology: God, the World, and Global Warming. In his review of the book, John B. Cobb, Jr. said, “[McFague] calls Christians to new feeling, new acting, and new thinking. Perhaps as the threat to our world that she describes so well presses more obviously upon us, the church will begin to listen.”

Anne Primavesi, an Irish theologian, has been in conversations with scientists such as James Lovelock for many years. She has introduced Lovelock’s Gaia Theory to the study of the Bible and theology. In her book Gaia and Climate Change, she challenges Christian communities to change their theological climate. Instead of subscribing to over-powering and imperialistic images of God, Primavesi offers a nonviolent theological model to understand our relations with human beings, with sacred earth, and with God. 

Here at Episcopal Divinity School, I have taught the course “God and Creation” for many years and have introduced students to the works of these theologians who have written poignantly on climate change and environmental issues. My teaching and pedagogy have emphasized putting into practice what we have learned in embodied ways supporting African American cultural critic and theorist bell hooks’s views on education as practice of freedom. 

In conjunction with my courses, I have brought students to an organic farm to learn about the close relation between the soil, water, climate, and plant cycles. After the visit, three people, including myself, started a vegetable garden in our backyards. In the past two summers, I have grown tomatoes, bell peppers, squash, cucumbers, onions, and different herbs. This new practice has deepened my understanding of the symbiotic relationship between human beings and our environment. 

Last fall, I brought students to a community garden in Watertown, Massachusetts, started by the Rev. Louise Forrest, MDiv EDS ’80. The community garden enables children in the housing project to plant vegetables and tend to the garden. It provides fresh produce for several families. Some of the students who visited the garden want to introduce the idea of setting up a community garden at EDS and in their future ministries. 

I am increasingly convinced that we cannot just talk about global warming and other environmental problems without changing how we live and practice our spirituality. In my spirituality of healing class, I introduce healthy eating and healthy living as important spiritual disciplines. I am very impressed by Primavesi’s concept that human beings and the environment are co-evolutionary. Without collective metanoia (repentance) and deep solidarity with the earth, we cannot avert the disasters that global warming will bring. (Last winter was the second warmest winter in Boston since records began in 1872.)

EDS has received a major grant from the Henry Luce Foundation of New York to help the school and faith communities learn about religious pluralism and engage in interreligious dialogue. Throughout the academic year, Professor Christopher Duraisingh has organized a series of interfaith table-talks. He has invited Jewish, Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist practitioners to come to share with us their spiritual paths. The EDS community has also visited the Ramakrishna Vedanta Center in Boston. Swami Tyaganada of the Center has come to speak in the World Religions and the Search for Comminity course. 

Many Asian religious traditions emphasize the close relation between human beings and nature. Conversations with people of other faiths allow the EDS community to learn from and network with other faith communities to address common concerns, such as environmental issues and climate change.

The Sustainability Task Force of the American Academy of Religion has invited me to serve on a panel to talk about creative pedagogies in teaching religion and environmental issues at the annual meeting in November. I will be able to share some of my insights in teaching environmental racism, climate change, and ecological debt with the academic community and share what EDS has done in changing the climate of theology and theological education.

Kwok Pui Lan is the William F. Cole Professor of Christian Theology and Spirituality at the Episcopal Divinity School and her most recent book is Globalization, Gender, and Peacebuilding: The Future of Interfaith Dialogue.