Rooted & Grounded in Prayer
The Via Creativa—Rooted & Grounded
Rooted and Grounded in Prayer
Genesis 28:16 “Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it.”
Matthew 6:5-7 “And whenever you pray…”
Tonight, as we continue the Via Creativa theme of being rooted and grounded, we think about being rooted and grounded in prayer. Prayer: what exactly is that about? (E.G., the fellow who thought he was God and when asked for evidence of this belief, replied, “Because when I pray, I find I’m talking to myself.”) Why is it that the only direct request of the disciples to Jesus was to teach them to pray? Is prayer a mere formality for church and special gatherings or is it deeper than that? Let us see what we can discover as we consider being rooted and grounded in prayer.
I will say, quite honestly and without embarrassment, that for me prayer has been an evolving experience. As a younger disciple, I thought prayer had to be formal and set apart from everything else. Thus, there was a need for “prayer time,” which included reading special devotional literature. There is value in that discipline without question. But that way of praying never really worked for me. It was too stilted, too formal and did not offer much in the way of deepening my spiritual life.
For me, prayer has evolved into attitude and state of mind. It is not something done at special times but rather something done all the time. To live is to pray. Prayer is like the breath, always there, always enabling the experience of the holy. So maybe it is accurate to say that prayer is not so much something you do as it is something you are. (Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it)—we can pray just by being who we are.
There is a verse from a hymn that provides a hint of how this lived prayer works. The hymn is Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing and offers these words: Come thou fount of every blessing; tune my heart to sing thy grace. “Tune my heart.” That is what we are doing when we root and ground our lives in prayer. As Anne Lamott says, “We have to be open for business.
There is an energy, an aliveness that is around us and within us—a shimmering, quivering energy of God, of grace, of love. And like the strings of a musical instrument, our hearts and minds and souls need to be tuned so that we can resonate with that energy, so that we can perceive it and vibrate with it and live its grace. And that is what prayer does—it tunes us so that we are in rhythm with the energy of love and grace and are energized to work for justice and redemption for all.
Prayer is attunement. It helps us bring the consciousness of heaven to earth, to the here and now. That is what wisdom teachers do in ways that attract others to follow them. It must have been Jesus’ demeanor, his outlook, his way of talking and walking and eating that drew people to him. They wanted what he had which is why they asked him to teach them to pray. They had seen what a life rooted and grounded in prayer was like and they wanted the same for themselves.
In Jubilee Asheville’s service on Sunday there was a song offered by Paula Hanke that was lovely, Holy Now by Peter Mayer. The song had these words, “Everything is holy now,” and it told the story of how life can be so attuned that it vibrates with the holy, mystical energy that pervades everything. So, the singer sang, not only is there holiness present when the bread and wine are consecrated, but everything is holy now; the song sings about miracles like the parting of the Red Sea and Jesus turning water into wine and how it once seemed that miracles only happened “back then” but now the singer says he cannot keep track of miracles because everything is a miracle. And the song references holy water that was found only at church, but now the singer says he must hold his breath because it seems he is swimming in a sea of holy water, and he walks with a reverent air because everything is holy now. The singer speaks of the questioning on an innocent child’s face or the gift of a new morning and says there is no way not to call these sacraments. He says he stood outside and saw a little red-winged bird shining like a burning bush and singing like a scripture verse—it made him want to bow his head because everything is holy now.
That perspective is the fruit of prayer. Life becomes a continuing miracle, a waterfall of love and grace.
Rooted and grounded in prayer. This is more than words, more than closed eyes and bowed heads. What would it do for your prayer life to consider prayer as thinking? But not just any thinking but a certain way of thinking. Compassionate thinking, for example. When we hold another in our thoughts as we think about them and the issues they are having to deal with, be it health related or relationship related or life related or what have you—when we think with compassion about such situations, is it not a form or prayer? A lifting up of someone who is burdened into our thoughts and feelings? Do you not think there is power in such thinking? Oh, I tell you there is. The spirit of God honors this kind of thinking and brings things together in the most mysterious of ways. E.G. Thinking of a woman who lost her child in a 4-wheeler accident. Just driving and thinking with compassion about her, of how hard it is to lose a child. And this compassionate thinking prompted me to call her and I reached her in her car. I told her I was thinking about her and she began to cry—the day I called was her child’s birthday—he would have been 20 years old on that day.
Coincidence? Strange occurrence? Interesting timing? Maybe so. Or maybe everything is holy now, everything is a miracle now. Maybe we are being led by the hands of grace—maybe we are so in tune with the energy of God that our hearts vibrate with his compassion and we become the expression of that compassion in the lives of others.
Did you read Sue Monk Kidd’s, The Secret Life of Bees? It is a story of three sisters who raise bees and sell honey. The sisters are all named for months of the year: May, June, and August. May is the special sister. She is so attuned to the pain of others that she wears it as her own, so much so that her two sisters must be cautious about speaking about certain events around May because the pain and hurt of others just undoes her. She cries and hugs the wailing wall she has constructed in the back yard and is so overcome with compassion for others that she cannot function in normal ways. She just grieves over what others have experienced.
May is a beautiful example of living prayer that rises out of compassionate thinking. It can be disorienting, and it can be grounding, all at the same time.
Let me suggest another kind of thinking that is also prayer: passionate thinking. When we are passionate about something it means we care about it and we have both the sensitivity to notice it and the energy to work for it to be OK, to be right. Think about any social issue you can name, and you will find that it is an issue because someone is passionate about it. Passion creates action. Passionate thinking kicks life into gear and gives rise to movement that works for change and brings about justice.
Yesterday was remembered as “Bloody Sunday.” It was a remembrance of the clash between police and civil rights marchers on the Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama. The late congressman John Lewis was among those beaten that Sunday. He wore the scars of that encounter the rest of his life. What gave him those scars? It was his passion for the freedom and dignity of his people. And that passion propelled him to action. That may be the best kind of prayer ever prayed.
Passionate thinking confronts issues of justice when it is bathed in love. Jubilee Pioneers is a community of love and compassion that sends its passion for justice out into the world to touch and heal those places where injustice has been the norm for two long. And this is one of the deeper mysteries about being rooted and grounded in prayer. When we offer our prayers there is a powerful force sent forth into the world. E.G. Unity Village—Silent Unity, a prayer ministry that goes on 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year. One person related going to the site of this ministry to take her turn as one of the prayers and how it was such a powerful physical experience to be in the place where continual prayer happens every day, all day. It may be that our prayers for ourselves and for others start a vibration of holiness that has the power to change the world. There have been experiments done that measured the effect of prayer on communities. E.G. Washington, D.C.
Have you heard of the Butterfly Effect that says we are so connected that the wing of a butterfly in the U.S. moves the air in China? What if it is true that we are that connected and that what we think and how we think have consequences for the world’s fate? The passionate thinking we engage makes a difference.
Anne Lamott writes about three essential prayers in a small book of recent publication. And what are those essential prayers? They give the book its title. The essential prayers, according to Lady Lamott are: Help, Thanks, and Wow. Pretty simple and profound. We are driven to prayer because we are in over our heads—HELP. Prayer brings us to grace that delivers us and gets us through the messes we make with our lives—THANKS. Ultimately, prayer brings us to reverence because everything is holy now, everything is a sacrament now, everything is a miracle now.
It occurred to me that during this time of the Via Creativa, exploring the theme of being rooted and grounded, should have begun with prayer. Because prayer centers us. Prayer claims us and colors us and tunes us to the vibrations of God. Only being rooted and grounded in prayer will allow us to be what we should be as a people of faith.
Anne Lamott says, “Gorgeous, amazing things come not our lives when we are paying attention: mangoes, grandchildren, Bach, rivers…” I recommend her book, Help, Thanks, Wow—The 3 Essential Prayers.