Thoughts & Prayers

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.

I was going to comment on WWW's post about prayer but it occurred to me that I would like to have some conversation on the topic here and I haven't posted in a while so it makes sense that way as well.....