When I (eventually) become a qualified chaplain, you might say that I will be a professional pray-er. Well, chaplaincy is not really about that but it is an aspect of the role.
When I was doula-ing, I prayed for all of my clients, not in front of them, not telling them about it, none of that, just me talking to a great power, telling Her about the client, thinking about the hopes and fears of the client, putting my intentions for their best out there. I will never know if my prayers had any impact on the birth process or the client's experience of parenting a newborn but I was taking time to do everything I could for that family and it didn't matter if they knew about it because it was about me preparing for the birth and contributing in a spiritual realm. Even though it is nearly two years since I attended a birth, I still sometimes pray for my families. My professional involvement is long finished but because they were important to me, I do this. If God is there, if God is interested, if She is listening to what I say, then this is something I can do for the people I have cared for. If God is not there, not interested or not listening, it has cost me nothing.
I don't offer thoughts and prayers as a get out of jail free card. Faced with a crisis of any kind I will offer whatever I practically can, so what is offered depends on the disaster, who faces it, the physical distance etc. And I will pray. In reflection, I might realise I have a new thing to offer or I might be sure there's no more I can reasonably do. In this case, I still pray because it's something I can do. Does it achieve anything? well I can't ever be sure what it achieves externally but it changes my relationship to the situation.
In churches we say that every prayer is answered, even if it's not the answer we want. I know that sounds ridiculous but what it means to me is that, if I have done what I can in a practical sense and then tried to let go of an expected outcome, I can move into the future with peace. If I get an answer I want, that's fantastic. If I seem to get no answer or one I don't like, it's not about what I want but about my peaceful response to the outcome.
My learning about prayer has mostly come from watching people and I have many times heard people pray for "the medical teams" or the surgeon, the first responders, teachers, politicians and so on. The belief I have learned is that good things come from God but humans are usually acting as his hands and obviously are deserving of thanks and praise for what they do. I once heard my grandfather pray publicly in gratitude for the help and care offered to him by my mum (his daughter-in-law) He offered his thanks to her privately on many occasions and in many ways but a public prayer was like telling the CEO about the fabulous service offered by the sales assistant.
As I understand it, prayer is an act of humility rather than pride, it is about modifying my reactions to the things I can't control, it is about offering what I can in generosity to someone I can't practically help, it is about reflecting on my own responses in case I can improve them next time. It is about becoming less selfish, less prideful, reducing ego, less about the result and more about the process.
My views on prayer and the prayers themselves have become more nuanced with time, less self serving, more outwardly focussed but also more inward. Will my views grow and change in the next decades? I can't imagine it right now but then nobody can imagine growth until they look back on it.
Thank you for this.
ReplyDeleteIt makes a great deal of sense to my non praying self.
And I am glad that it is a resource you have.
As you know, Kylie, I'm not religious so I don't understand prayer at all, but I know a lot of people find it useful, reassuring and so on, and if it helps people to meet life's challenges, then all well and good. We all need something to draw on when we're in a tough situation.
ReplyDeleteEC,
ReplyDeleteIt's the first time I've tried to articulate this and it was enlightening for me to write.
Nick,
I felt that www's understanding was shaped by people who approach prayer differently to what I do and wanted to comment on how it can be.
I can see where you come from Kylie. Prayer and meditation are very much part of my daily routine and I am proof for their efficacy.
ReplyDeleteRamana,
ReplyDeleteAs I wrote this I realised that the ongoing intention and discipline are very significant.
I can see the fruits of your meditative practice very clearly
Of course God embraces both male and female qualities because according to the Bible "In the image of God created He him; male and female created He them." But Jesus did not tell his disciples to pray "Our Mother, who art in heaven..."
ReplyDeleteMaybe you are a feminist. Maybe you read The Shack where God the Father is portrayed as a black woman. I have no idea why you wrote what what you wrote, but I don't think we should refer to God as "She". That would be fitting for a Goddess.
I'm not trying to put you down. I'm just trying to understand your thinking. Would fyour view off God be acceptable to the Salvation Army?
Robert,
ReplyDeleteI referred to God as she because I was talking about birthing clients and therefore might be appealing to the feminine in God.
I referred to God as she because I need to broaden my idea of who God is and maybe it will help.
I referred to God as she because I am a feminist ( a poor style of feminist but nevertheless...) and wanted to acknowledge the feminine aspect of God.
I have a copy of The Shack but haven't read it yet.
What would the Salvation Army think? The conservative elements wouldn't like it but the conservative elements run the show so the errant She of a nobody in Australia would not be noticed.
I did refer to God as he and forgot to capitalise, maybe you didn't notice that but I haven't ditched the Father.
Given you make no other arguments, I'm going to assume that you agree with the rest of my content? It took me a deal of work to articulate and is probably incomplete but tries to show some beauty in our faith. It's also a response to another post, I wonder what you think of it in that context?
Maybe my theology is too wishy washy, maybe I'm making God in my own image. You can hold me to account, no offence taken.
kylie,
ReplyDeleteI am glad you took no offence as no offence was intended. I found your post very thoughtfully put together, quite compassionate (concerned about the welfare and feelings of others), and sincere. But being a traditionalist (remember, I'm 80), I was jarred by reading the pronouns Her and She used in reference to Deity. I suppose you could say it is out of my confort zone.
I don't know much about Buddhism but the post struck me as rather Buddhist. We don't pray into a void to feel better about ourselves. We pray to ask the Most High God (the only God, really) to act or intervene in the affairs of human beings, to reveal Himself to us as we seek Him. I believe He did that most directly through the Incarnation and the Curcifixion and the Resurrection and the Ascension.
I can't help it; that is what I believe is our only hope, as peculiar as that seems to some.
You have a great blog, kylie, and I don't want you or anybody else to think I meant to disparage you or it in any way.
Robert,
ReplyDeleteIt probably seems Buddhist because I deliberately left out such ideas as God's will, aligning myself with His will, "standing in the gap" or submission but I believe in that stuff, I just don't use that kind of language around people who aren't used to it.
I ask Him to intervene in my life and in many other situations but I have realised that if a person doesn't believe that will happen, prayer or prayer-like activity (meditation?) is still valuable and functions as a spiritual discipline. (in this case spiritual meaning the pursuit of purpose)
The discipline of regular and intentional prayer-like quietness, compassion and reflection can benefit us all. It doesn't need to be self serving and conceited as some seem to understand it.
I'm sure I'm as traditional as you are, I was called staid at 16 and it was probably true but I no longer view it as an insult ;)
I sincerely love this post and have read it several times before commenting. I offer prayers freely .
ReplyDeleteAnne,
ReplyDeletethank you for your encouragement and also for being a pray-er :)
You made good sense - I'm a non-prayer, perhaps I should try it for when I feel helpless.
ReplyDeleteSx
Ms Scarlet, if it strikes a chord with you, there's nothing to lose 😊
DeleteI have been following this post with interest, and reflecting on each comment, Kylie.
ReplyDeleteWestern culture is what Os Guinness (YouTube) calls 'a cut flower civilization':
We are surrounded by cathedrals, churches. But the root of Christianity is dead and flowers wilt.
The fire in Notre Dame Cathedral was symbolic. Europe has lost the faith.
Christ has 'departed' from our culture, to use a phrase of John Calvin's, in his wonderful Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, published by Eerdmans.
As you say, people do not understand Biblical language.
Street preachers tell me that people do not like the Gospel when they hear it; the Gospel of Christ crucified for our sins offends our spiritual pride.
A mature street preacher in Cheltenham (educated at Birmingham Bible College) told me that England is now so far along the road of unbelief, that there may be no road back.
In 1973 an elderly Church of Scotland minister, Stuart Borthwick, recommended a Christian bookshop in Glasgow (Scotland) where I discovered the writing of Francis Schaeffer, who had a profound understanding of our post-Christian age - read his biography by Colin Duriez.
I am eternally grateful to Mr Borthwick, then the Industrial Chaplain of Clydebank.
Let me recommend an online essay:
*The Collision of Two Minds: Malcolm Muggeridge Meets Francis Schaeffer.*
David Virtue. 2014.
Let me recommend a paperback book:
*Unlocking the Bible - A unique overview of the whole Bible* by David Pawson.
You can see YouTube videos of the Rev. Pawson, now deceased, who was a Baptist.
Let me recommend a YouTube discussion:
*Should Christians Call God a She? with Clark Bates.*
The Alisa Childers podcast # 62.
The battle for Biblical truth (a favourite phrase of Martin Lloyd-Jones) will be THE great spiritual conflict of the 21st Century.
In a Catholic bookshop I spotted 14 titles by Richard Rohr, a Franciscan monk whose theology is New Age Christian; he is heterodox like the late Phyllis Tickle.
As a chaplain you will come up against this false theology all the time.
At the end of his ife in 1952 Arthur W Pink said it would be very hard for the church ministers of tomorrow. Pink saw the present crisis coming as did Carl Henry.
Jack Haggerty
P.S. I am reading *The Life of Saint Columba* by Adomnan of Iona (Penguin Classic).
I am sure young people would like Celtic Christianity which was sound in theology.
I feel Columba's presence when I travel in the West Highlands of Scotland.
"a public prayer was like telling the CEO about the fabulous service offered by the sales assistant."
ReplyDeleteI love your analogy.
As to not telling people that you are praying for them... I had a blog friend--an Australian--to whom I was so close that I still look at her photo from time to time. She and I were on the opposite sides of the fence when it came to religion, but we were able to be close anyway until a terminal diagnosis led her to look for a comfort that I could not give, that comfort being a shared belief in the power of prayer. She felt the need to tell me that she was praying for me, and although I wanted to accept her gift graciously--the moreso because she was dying--the truth was that I found it offensive because it failed to take into account my values and my wishes and because she defended saying it to me despite my feelings. Because of her need to tell others that she was praying for them and to have others assure her that they were praying for her, the subject of prayer became a wedge that drove us further and further apart until, by the time she died, I had been excluded from her inner circle of blog friends. I will forevermore feel guilty that, when she needed my support most, I failed to find a way to transcend our differences.
When a mass murder occurs In America (there are now hundreds of mass murders a year in America), Republican politicians, in particular (Biden also does it, and and Obama did it) will invariably say, "My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families." Although they have no intention of doing anything to alleviate the problem (their only answer is to put more guns into the hands of more people so that the "good guys" can kill the "bad guys"), they persist in saying those same words as though they were a mantra. I believe that you use prayer as a force for good. I believe this because I believe that you are a loving person who wants to be a help in the world. Despite this, the very word prayer has become so tainted for me that I never hear it but what I'm reminded of the callousness, injustice, and hypocisy, evil that the religious right represents. Under Trump, my anger and outrage grew much, much stronger, but they were already there and had been for decades. Yet, I am very glad that you are my friend. I revere the good within you, and I know that, in you hands, prayer is good.
Hi Jack,
ReplyDeleteI wondered what you would have to say about this :)
I have thought I understood what New Age thought included but when you talked about New Age Christianity, I had to look it up. After a quick review I have realised I need to do a lot more research but I don't think my theology is anything close to New Age.
You've given me a lot of references which I'll be interested to look up, coincidentally I'm unemployed and have a little time!
I don't believe that England or any other place is so far along the road of disbelief that there is no road back, believing that would be to dethrone God. I will agree that western society is drifting (or even speeding) away from Christianity. We think we have no need for faith but maybe we need faith to be explained differently, lived differently and produce more fruit.
Can I ask you what it was that moved you to decide on a Christian path? What was it that you could no longer say no to?
Thanks for your input, you know I value it
Dear Snow,
ReplyDeleteI remember your pleas for people not to pray for you, or at least not to say so. I always found it strange that anybody would offer prayer as comfort to someone who didn't believe in it. I didn't know that the woman involved was dying, I can only guess that she offered and asked for the only thing she had left but that was on her, not you.
I specifically referenced the "thoughts and prayers" hypocrisy because WWW mentioned it. I believe that there would be some who would say it with hearts full of real care and who would put their money where their mouth is. Others will fail to act which reveals the truth of their care.
I don't think I understand exactly the way you feel about prayer but I do understand where it came from and if you never said a good word about it, I would respect your stance.
Thank you for your friendship over such a long time and your positive view of me :)
Dear Kylie
ReplyDeleteI hope that you and your family have a safe and happy 2021.
Chaplains have a person-centred methodology; they are trained to be active listeners; and in their pastoral care, they create a safe and welcoming place for people.
*God is love, and he who abides in love, abides in God, and God in him/her.*
1 John 4:16
My reading of the New Testament is not pre-critical, yet I am shocked so many people who study theology are influenced by Bultmann, a troubled man of faltering faith.
The universality of sin, the reality of evil; our need for an historic Saviour; our fear of emptiness; our despair in the face of death, are answered for me in Christian doctrine.
Science informs us about the biological and sub-atomic world, and the vast universe; neuro-cognitive science, which is only about 20 years old, tells us about the brain.
Scientists are not moral philosophers, and when they attempt to philosophise, their thoughts are often pedestrian, even shallow.
Paul, Augustine, Aquinas, Pascal, Calvin, John and Charles Wesley, Dostoyevsky, Theresa of Lisieux, Martin Buber, Karl Barth and Simone Weil possessed an understanding which is beyond empirical science's remit.
Man is a mystery to himself as Karol Wojtyla used to say.
*For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing.* Romans 7:19
None of the New Atheists ever took off their masks and told us about their inner corruption.
Hitchens got a laugh when he said he only prayed when he was drunk and wanted to make love.
As a child I spent much time in the Egyptian Room of the Art Gallery and Museum across from which I lived.
This was my experience of the numinous - the little mummified man, the huge granite sarcophagus, the stories and images of Osiris, Isis, Horus, Seth and Anubis and the Ka.
My father's cheerful wonder in the mythology and my mother's apprehension, got into me.
It is laughable to watch YouTube videos by people who do not believe Jesus existed or that his Resurrection and Ascension cannot be accepted in a post-Copernican universe.
During the worst period of Stalin's Terror, when millions of innocent people were being arrested and sent to the death camps, Pasternak wanted the presence of Jesus of Nazareth.
Jack
A gremlin got into my laptop !
ReplyDeleteI meant to wish you all a safe and happy 2022, Kylie.
As they say in mythic Caledonia:
*Who's like us, damn few, and they're aa deid.*
Jack
Kylie, when I clicked on your name as attached to a comment you left on my blog, it didn't take me to Electica but to a blog called Write Panic, the latter being the only blog that was connected to your profile.
ReplyDeleteKylie, I ended up here today because when I clicked on your name as attached to a comment you left on my blog, it didn't take me to Electica but to a blog called A Write Panic, the latter being the only blog that was connected to your profile. While here, I re-read the comments to your post, and while I could, I think, easily come up with a hundred questions that scream for answers, I will limit myself to a very few...
As for the gender of God, did God choose to be a male, and could he have chosen to be a female without sacrificing his perfection? how can it be proven that it was God who told the male patriarchs who wrote the Bible that women were inferior beings who were created by God (from a man's rib no less) as an afterthought, rather than that those patriarchs came up the idea on their own in order to give divine sanction to the inferior status that they themselves assigned to women? Even in the supposedly liberating NT is the claim that man wasn't made for woman but woman for man, and that Eve sinned first and then led Adam into sin, beliefs that have been used for millennia to justify men's belief that they have a divinely-given right to control the lives of women. Yet, as it turns out, women are superior to men in many ways, not the least of which is life expectancy. Does this mean that God endowed women with various forms of superiority in order to compensate them for what might be considered overall inferiority, and what does it even mean to say that God is male? Does it mean that he literally looks like Michelangelo's version of God as an old man with bulging muscles? Does it mean that, like his male creation, God has male DNA, testicles, ejaculate, a beard, a penis, a prostate, and what use would a being like God even make of his male reproductive organs? Once the claim is made that God is a male being, that claim cannot be understood unless such questions are answered. Finally, is every part of the Trinity male or just the father and the son (I don't recall gender being assigned to the Holy Ghost, but if the three parts of the Trinity are really one, how would it be possible for one of the three to differ in gender)? As I see it, once one believes that the only perfect being in all of existence is a male and that every part of that male being is perfect in itself, then it follows that men are closer to God than are women due to the fact that God shared with men certain perfect body parts that he himself possesses as an aspect of his perfection and that he denied to women. What can one possibly conclude from this other than that women are inferior to men (the Bible refers to them as the weaker vessel, the vessel that carried sin into the world and without whom men might conceivably still live in paradise and stroll alongside God in the "cool of the evening"). From that conclusion, the path is paved for all of the egregious discrimination by which, for thousands of years, half of the human species has denied the realization of their full potential in the name of a perfect male deity.
Hi Snow,
DeleteI'm unsure about why you only managed to find "A write Panic". It is a group blog, formed for pandemic collaboration and I joined it but haven't contributed.
The more I think about it, the more I realise that the idea of a male deity is flawed. I see so much strength and goodness in women, it is undoubtedly a reflection of God.
Really, God has to be of indeterminate gender, which makes the questions of anatomy and physiology moot.
A male God has to be more a product of us making our deity in our image, rather than the other way.
Can male or female be universally closer to God? I don't think so. Our intimacy with God is a result of our own will (or lack thereof) to be close, it relies on our individual efforts and surrender.
http://kylie-sonja.blogspot.com/ is the link to my blog, should you like to read a current post. I hope the link works.
"I'm unsure about why you only managed to find "A write Panic". It is a group blog, formed for pandemic collaboration and I joined it but haven't contributed."
DeleteMy dear friend, I am a "follower" of both your blogs, so I have no trouble getting there from my listing of blogs I follow. I only meant to say that clicking on your name in a comment you left on my blog took me to the group blog from which I had no access to your blogs.
A book based on the Hebrew Bible based book portraying God as a woman just came out this week: "Let There Be Light: The Real Story of Her Creation."
Had I not had prostate surgery on Thursday--preceded by eye surgery the week before), I would have responded to your interesting comment sooner, but I at least spent time thinking about it while in the hospital. I primarily focused my energy into reflecting upon the difficulty of defending the claim that God is anatomically male. For example, maleness comes from cellular structure so does this mean that God has cells, and, if so, where did he get them? Then there are the many problems associated with assigning maleness to a being that, presumably, doesn't pee, shave, have sex, or require the kind of muscle fibers that make men physically stronger than women in some ways, but physically inferior in others. For example, the nature of men's muscle fibers better enables them to lift heavy weights, while women's refined muscle fibers better enables them to make smooth movements, which, ironically, better equips them to compete in that male bastion of firing guns. Then, there's the seeming absurdity of ascribing a penis to a being that neither pees nor has sex, and therefore has no need of such an accoutrement (of course, being God, God has no need of anything becasue he is not lacking in anything). Clearly, if God has male DNA--and all that goes with it--then God is a physical being who occupies a given amount of space, which is how the Mormons perceive him, even so far as to claim that he is married. However, most Western religions do not claim that God is a man. Not even the Catholic Church goes that far, instead holding that,"God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. He is neither man nor woman: He is God." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_of_God_in_Christianity)
In bringing up such potentially offensive details as public hair and scrotums, I don't mean to trivialize the discussion. What I do intend is to inquire regarding what it means to say that God is a male. Surely, if one makes the claim, then the claim must have meaning, but what? One can, of course, argue that the whole thing is a "divine mystery," but would this constitute a good faith response or an admission that the claimant doesn't know what his claim means?
Unlike you, I am offended by the claim that God is male because beliefs have consequences, so if one claims that men are more like God then women are, it follows that women are inferior to men, thereby reducing one's religion to a good-old-boys' club in which women are admitted grudgingly--if at all--and relegated to a rear seat. (Likewise, portraying God as white inevitably leads one to conclude that blacks and East Asians are inferior.) Women have given their lives for Christianty, so to suggest that the noblest female martyr who ever lived was in some way less like God than the wickedness man who ever lived is appalling (Putin must number somewhere near the top). I often find that, atheist though I am, I nonetheless hold a higher opinion of what the status of being God would have to entail if he is to be worthy of worship) than do many Christians who use Scripture to define God as that being who is most like themselves.
Snowy,
DeleteI agree with you on all points.
I got a wee shock when you said "Unlike you, I am offended by the claim that God is male......"
There are many reasons to be offended by this assumption, as you point out. I can only observe that while I am enough of a free thinker to challenge the assumption about God being male, I'm obviously indoctrinated enough that I don't challenge it too heartily.
Your logical thought is so much deeper than mine, which is great for my learning!