Our Prayer is as Important as Our Action

This blog post is the third 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. The first installment was by Margaret Bullitt-Jonas ’88 and the second installment was written by Dr. Kwok Pui Lan. 

By Christi Humphrey '08

The line that stands out for me in the blog post, “Do Progressive Christians Pray?” is the following: "God brings justice and mercy into the world one person at a time."

Hidden within this line is the belief that God’s work was not completed in seven days, but rather, God continues to create in the world today. God works in and through each of us—as co-creators—and our individual transformation ripples out into the world. The foundation for this transformation is our own prayer mixed with God’s grace. 

Prayer comes in many forms. Some prayers are dear to us because of their familiarity, the memories and tradition associated with them. “Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be your name,” or “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.”

There are prayers offered in a worship service—corporate prayers offered for the Church and those in authority. Prayer for the welfare of the world and for those who suffer, are in any trouble or have died.

There are also spontaneous prayers offered throughout the day, for the need of a loved one or in confession. And there are those moments of silence and meditation when the prayer simple rests in the presence of the Divine, whether it is behind the wheel of a car, in response to a beautiful sunset, or on a meditation stool as part of a daily practice. 

All of these forms of prayer make up a conversation with God—a conversation as unique as we are and the basis for our transformation into the beings God intended us to be.  Through a dialogue with God—if we are open to it—we can learn about ourselves and our place in the world. 

For centuries, people of faith have stopped throughout the day to pray, to commune with God. The way we pray, what we pray for, and how often we pray, says something about how we understand our place in the world and who we believe God to be. 

If we are to be co-creators with God in realizing the dream God had for the world at its creation—a place of unity, mutuality, and beauty—we must know ourselves.  We must understand our gifts, talents, and passions, our shortcomings and our dark places. We must know God—God’s love, grace, strength, comfort, and encouragement. In the same way that we are in relationship with those we love, we must be in relationship with God, through prayer. 

George Herbert says the following in his poem “Prayer”:

“God’s breath in man returning to his birth, The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage. . .reversed thunder. . .A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear; Softness, and peace, and joy, and love and bliss,  . . . Heaven in ordinary man . . . the soul’s blood . . .” 

Do progressive Christians pray?  Yes, because our prayer informs our action. Our prayer is as important as our action.

Christi Humphrey ’08 is the Director of Alumni/ae and Constituent Engagement at Episcopal Divinity School and a certified spiritual director and ministry developer.

Why Progressive Christians Need to Pray

This blog post is the second 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. The first installment was by Margaret Bullitt-Jonas ’88 and the third installment will be released next week.

By Dr. Kwok Pui Lan

Prayer, meditation, and contemplation are pathways to God. During these moments, we are less obsessed with ourselves and the world around us, as we dwell in the loving kindness of the one who creates us and calls us into being.

Progressive Christians have to learn to pray, so that we will not lose heart. The world’s suffering is immense and our human effort doesn’t seem to make a dent. Prayer is a discipline, through which we learn to cultivate our hearts and minds to believe in the impossible, to hold out for hope, and to listen to the voice from the whirlwind.

Over the years I have taught generations of students about the spiritual life. They have taught me about the vulnerability of the spirit, the weakness of the flesh, the restlessness of the soul, and the bottom pit of despair. From them I learn the importance of prayer, the solace of God’s healing, and the companionship we need to walk the spiritual path together.

Prayer is more than “asking God for something.” Prayer opens up a vista. The German mystic Mechthild of Magdeburg wrote, “It draws God who is great into a heart which is small.” Many spiritual teachers, past and present, have taught me how to pray and I would like to share some of the best advice I have received and invite readers to share theirs.

Prayer transforms us, not God. Chris Glaser has taught progressive Christians to pray and written a practical guide to prayer. He points out that the Desert Fathers and Mothers believed that prayer is about our transformation, not God’s. “When we pray for someone who is ill or in prison or mistreated, I do not believe God “fixes” these things, but that we become better caregivers, liberators, and advocates,” he writes.    

Jesus teaches about prayer beyond words. Franciscan priest and best-selling author Richard Rohr was the Kellogg Lecturer at the Episcopal Divinity School some years ago. I was so mesmerized by his lectures that I bought two of his books afterward. In Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, he says that Jesus has taught us to pray with words—the Lord’s Prayer. But many of us forget that Jesus also taught prayer beyond words: “praying in secret” (Matt. 6:5-6), “not babbling on as the pagans do” (Matt. 6:7), and the “predawn, lonely prayer of Jesus (Mark 1:35). These are pointers toward what we would call contemplation today.

Prayer for serenity. Reinhold Niebuhr’s Serenity Prayer is well-known: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.” While progressive Christians want to transform the world, Niebuhr’s Christian realism reminds us to accept with humility that there are things we can’t possibly change. Serenity comes when we know that it is ultimately not up to us, but God. In his original version of the prayer, Niebuhr included the Zen-like advice, “Living one day at a time. Enjoyment one moment at a time.”

Ecstasy in prayer. No one has described their prayerful and spiritual life in more ecstatic and joyful language than the mystics. Too often we think of prayer in terms of meekness of the soul and restrained emotions. But the mystics open a window to a spiritual life full of passion and buoyed with love. Mechthild of Magdeburg prayed, “Lord, you are my lover, my longing, my flowing stream, my sun, and I am your reflection.” Catherine of Siena prayed to the Holy Spirit, “come into my heart; draw it to Thee by Thy power, O my God, and grant me charity with filial fear. Preserve me, O ineffable Love, from every evil thought; warm me, inflame me with Thy dear love.”

Prayer as blessing. The Irish philosopher and poet John O’Donohue draws on Celtic spiritual tradition and blends elegant, poetic language with spiritual insights. One of his many books has the loving title, To Bless the Space Between Us. He observes, “A blessing evokes a privileged intimacy. . . A blessing is not a sentiment or a question; it is a gracious invocation where the human heart pleads with the divine heart.” In one of the blessings, he invokes:

            May we discover

            Beneath our fear

Embers of anger

To kindle justice.

The universe responds. Alice Walker grew up in Georgia attending church with her family. Later, she became interested in Native American spirituality and Buddhist meditation. In The Same River Twice, she talks about honoring the difficult and records a trying moment in her professional life and separation from her lover. Toward the end of the book, she says we may pray to God and the divine with many names. For her, the intention is not to have God answer prayers, but to beseech the universe to respond.

Kwok Pui Lan is the William F. Cole Professor of Christian Theology and Spirituality at the Episcopal Divinity School and her most recent book  Occupy Religion: Theology of the Multitude is published by Rowman and Littlefield.

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.

My Heart is a Raging Volcano of Love for You

By Kevin G. Thew Forrester

What if liturgy and prayer reflected at-one-ment rather than redemptive violence? Love rather than retribution? Embrace rather than condemnation? Forgiveness rather than judgment?

My Heart Is a Raging Volcano of Love for You reflects my experience of liturgy and ministry as being of a single compassionate whole. The liturgical life of the church is the deep well from which ministry draws its divine vitality.

From the divine well flows the grace to freely serve. Otherwise baptismal ministry quickly devolves to egoic attempts to save the lost world.

I believe that a challenge before us as Christians is that we live in a time of much cultural change and fear. The predominant mythic-literal ways of understanding ourselves, God, and church are in transition.

As created beings, change and evolution are part and parcel to our life as creatures of God’s creation. And yet, it is also true that the break of the 21st century seems to have ushered us into a teeming flow of accelerated changes.

As the church in worship of God, engaged in baptismal ministry, we cannot help but be affected by the cultural whirlwind. However, perhaps we may perceive within the shifting winds a divine invitation to revitalize and reform our tradition.

The eucharistic liturgy of baptism especially celebrates the Living Font from which flows our Trinitarian call as Christians to seek and serve Christ in all persons, to love our neighbors as ourselves, to strive for justice and peace among all people, and to respect the dignity of every human being – divine invitations of life that flow from the one Holy Source.

In the book, My Heart Is a Raging Volcano of Love for You, I explore how meaningful and authentic baptismal ministry cannot take place apart from liturgical renewal. The images of God and Christ and church and world and self inexorably shape our sense of dignity, our notion of justice, and our image of neighbor. How we celebrate in our worship greatly determines how we serve.

To paraphrase ancient wisdom – lex orandi, lex vivendi. This pithy affirmation points out that the church has traditionally recognized that worship and life are inextricably connected, one reinforcing the other; for better or worse.

In this second volume of my At-One-Ment series I develop new forms of prayer and liturgy that draw upon our ancient catholic tradition in dialogue with our contemporary, postmodern, cultural context. These prayers reflect what I describe as an integral sacramental experience and vision of life, which invite us beyond both the individualism of modernity and the fragmentation of postmodernity.

We need to realize that the liturgy at its heart is a shout, a song, a whisper, a plea, a thanksgiving, of love. We long to be united with the Beloved who ceaselessly gives us birth and calls us home. We cast about for words that might begin to express the cry of our soul to receive the divine kiss whose moisture gives us life.

My Heart Is a Raging Volcano of Love for You is an invitation to transcend the destructive redemptive violence of conventional atonement spirituality enshrined in prayer, liturgy and hymnody. Through conversation with mystics of both east and west, I invite the church to creatively express itself in prayers and liturgies flowing from our gracious at-one-ment with God, the Font from which flows all life.

Here are collects for Years A,B,C. Here are new liturgies for Great Three Days. Here is new expression of baptismal living reflective of ancient tradition, postmodern science, and our interfaith world. Here are prayers of a progressive Christianity with ancient roots.

* The Rev. Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D., has served in the Diocese of Northern Michigan for the past ten years. He is the author of Leadership and Ministry within a Community of Equals (InterCultural Ministry Development, 1997) and I Have Called You Friends (Church Publishing, 2003).

Living My Dream

by Lucretia Mann


Almost one year ago, I was rushed to the hospital, critically ill.  Following an hour in the ER, I was diagnosed with renal failure and readied for immediate hemodialysis.  After five daily hemodialysis treatments, I was discharged from ICU for five further days of hospitalization.  Miraculously, by the time of my hospital discharge, my blood chemistry had significantly improved and I felt fairly normal AND physically, emotionally and spiritually exhausted.

While in the ER, even though I was aware that I was not thinking especially clearly, I knew I was fighting to survive.  In that battle, I also knew that I needed to let go of all expectations and attachments except my faith in God and desire to live.  I remember symbolically opening my hands to release my hold on the expectations and attachments, even EDS and my postulancy.  For those who know me well, you will appreciate the significance of that release for me:  attending EDS and ordination to the priesthood have been my dream for the past 30 years.  And it was a dream that I had never imagined I would be so blessed to actually experience.

After I had been home one week of my two and one half months’ leave from work, I started to hope that I would be able to pick up those threads of my life.   My hope was sustained by my faith and by the loving support of friends and family.  My three adult sons who live in the Baltimore-DC metropolitan area, successively spent five days with me from hospitalization through discharge.  To them I will be forever and deeply grateful.  Their active love sustained me and gave me courage to imagine a future.  My parish family provided meals and transportation to dialysis for the first month.  I was aware of being sustained in prayer by friends and their faith communities and by my EDS family.  To all of you, I am deeply grateful.

As I begin to prepare for the intensive June term at school, I am reflecting on the blessing of even being able to continue at EDS and with my postulancy for ordination to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church.  Before this medical crisis, I had never experienced the presence of God and support of praying as I have in the past year.  And I blink with amazement that now, as I write this reflection, I have been back at work for ten months; I have more energy than I have enjoyed in thirty years; and I am still on track to finish my degree in 2013.

I recognize that my own inherent optimism and refusal to view my renal failure catastrophically are factors that contribute to my sense of well being.  Yes, I must perform nightly peritoneal dialysis in my home until I have a kidney transplant.  But, this process occurs largely while I sleep, and I am able to disconnect each morning and resume my life.  Yes, I must plan to have sufficient supplies delivered to Cambridge for each intensive two-week term.  Yes, I must lug my dialysis machine with me on airplanes whenever I travel.  And yes, I must have sufficient protein in my daily diet and restrict my intake of potassium, phosphorous, and sodium.  Even with those considerations, I count myself blessed and I refuse to let the diagnosis of renal failure define who I am or limit my reponse to God's call to ministry and service.

Lucretia Mann is a DL student at EDS with the 2009 cohort and a postulant for Holy Orders in the Diocese of El Camino Real. Originally from the Boston area and a graduate of Wellesley College, Lucretia completed graduate studies in clinical psychology at the University of Florida (Go Gators!). She moved to Santa Cruz, California nine years ago in order to administer a small VA readjustment counseling center and provide therapy to veterans with PTSD from combat and/or miliitary sexual trauma. Lucretia is the mother of three adult sons who reside in the Baltimore-DC metropolitan area, and is a life-long crazed Red Sox fan.

Japan

By Susan Spilecki

Seeing the devastation in Northern Japan since the tsunami and the earthquakes, I don't know what to say. I am at a loss for words. But I do know that my former neighbors need our help, both spiritually and financially.

I lived in southern Japan from 1990 to 1992, teaching conversational English and studying kendo, Japanese swordsmanship. Every day on my way to and from the English school I saw those many of those distinctive tile roofs with the turned-up eaves that are so very Japanese. And now I am watching videos on Youtube that show roofs like these washing out to sea or washing inland onto acres and acres of farms.

My conversational Japanese back then was good enough. I could say of my struggles with grammar, “Muzukashi desu neh!” It is difficult, isn’t it! I could sympathize with my fellow teacher who had biked to school in a sudden downpour, “Taihen desu...” “That’s too bad…” But I never learned any words that would begin to express what those people in Hokkaido and northern Honshu are facing now.

During my time in Japan, the people were uniformly kind and helpful. Once, traveling in Kyoto, I got lost looking for a bus station. The official tourist map did not represent a one-to-one correspondence with the streets and blocks. I stood staring at the map and the street. A man approached, saying, “Do you speak English? Do you need help?” And then, because he had exhausted his English vocabulary, he guided me the nine city blocks to where the bus station actually was.

My students were excited to learn. I remember “Fred,” from my class of five-year-olds. They were taking a listening test, responding to a taped voice saying things like “Color Cookie Monster’s nose pink.” He jumped up in the middle of the test, shouting, “Eigo ga wakatta!” I understand English! He’s probably in college now. Could he possibly now be living near the quake zone?

When I heard of the tsunami, I went online and donated money to groups working to rescue humans and animals—because animals suffer too during natural disasters—and I looked for my former employer on LinkedIn, a professional networking site. She replied, “In Matsuyama all are okay so far. Haven't had any tremors yet, except those of the heart... It is really devastating and unbelievable.”

On behalf of the people who were so hospitable to me when I was a stranger in their midst, I ask you to do what you can to aid them. Donate to the relief efforts. Equally importantly, hold them in your prayers. God can do what we can’t.

Susan Spilecki is a student at Episcopal Divinity School. She teaches writing at Northeastern University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Do Progressive Christians Pray?

By Chris Glaser

Jesus told his disciples “a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.” It was the story of a widow seeking justice from an unjust judge, a judge who cared neither for God nor people. For awhile the judge refuses, but finally concludes, “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming” (Luke 18:4-5). Jesus’ point is that no one should feel discouraged in praying, because God is all the more swift to grant justice.

The first Christian contemplatives took the notion of “praying always” to heart, and went out into the desert to pray, to preserve the “edge” of Christian faith even as church and state colluded in the fourth century. As Thomas Merton explained in The Wisdom of the Desert,

“The Coptic hermits who left the world as though escaping from a [ship]wreck did not merely intend to save themselves. They knew that they were helpless to do any good for others as long as they floundered about in the wreckage. But once they got a foothold on solid ground, things were different. Then they had not only the power but even the obligation to pull the whole world to safety after them.”

The Desert Fathers and Mothers believed prayer was not about changing God’s mind or heart, but about their own transformation. God brings justice and mercy into the world one person at a time.

Prayer and meditation serve as grounding for those of us who seek the transformation of the world. This passion for transformation is one aspect of progressive Christianity. Another aspect is that we use our minds, our critical faculties, to approach our faith—texts, tradition, history, present, and future. But in the use of our minds we must not lose heart. We are not spiteful children who run around proclaiming “There is no Santa Claus!” to innocents. We are faithful people who affirm spiritual truths without literalist trappings. It is true that much progressive Christianity is about de-mythologizing and deconstruction. But in so doing, our hope is to recover the ancient meanings of the stories of our faith tradition, as well as their meaning for today.

One way of recovering those ancient meanings is through prayer and reflection. To participate in the biblical dialogue about God, meaning, virtue, and so on with our hearts as well as our minds is to be an authentic and integral part of an ancient tradition that was diverse in its viewpoints, heterodox in its theologies, and multiple in its expressions.

A third aspect of progressive Christianity is that we plumb the depths of our faith even as we value other faiths, including agnosticism and atheism. Our multicultural world—not as different from the ancient world in its diversity as is often thought—offers opportunities for dialogue, not only across religious and cultural boundaries, but across disciplinary boundaries as well. Science, for example, is not an adversary, but an aid in understanding the world, religion, and spirituality itself. The way of art and literature is another.

Just as some Christians seem to have lost their minds, progressive Christians cannot lose our hearts. As Jesus said, “What benefit is there if, in gaining the whole world, we lose our soul?” We are not modern-day Gnostics who believe our “secret wisdom” will save us. Rather, we believe that knowledge frees us from superstition, sentimentality, and the “elemental spirits” that the apostle Paul confronted in Galatians. Our faith is not stupid, nor is it heartless. Prayer and meditation afford us the opportunity, as the Desert Mothers and Fathers taught, for words to descend from our minds to our hearts.

We may be dismayed at traditions that seem to have buried Jesus once more or distanced God. Scholars appropriately question and debate the authenticity of these accounts. Contemplatives discover their inspiration for the present.

* Someone in publishing recently told me that there is no market for devotional materials among progressive Christians. I was told the same thing when I began writing prayers and meditations for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community, but have since published four such books that have enjoyed multiple printings, two of which have been translated into Spanish. Last month I began writing a contemplative blog entitled Progressive Christian Reflections (http://chrisglaser.blogspot.com).

** Chris Glaser, a minister of the Metropolitan Community Church, is the author of As My Own Soul: The Blessing of Same-Gender Marriage (Seabury, 2009) and The Final Deadline: What Death Has Taught Me about Life (Morehouse, 2010). Visit www.chrisglaser.com - Copyright © 2011 by Chris R. Glaser. All rights reserved.