5th August 2019
The word “prayer” has a world history’s worth of connotations behind it. You’ve got mass, you’ve got meditation, you’ve got speaking in tongues, grace, daily prayers; you’ve got pray to this god, now that god, now this god; and if you’re like my Nana you’ve got “I’ve just really gotta pray all the time because we all really, really need it.”
Now, I’m no theologian, I’m not old or wise or experienced, and I was raised in a very white Protestant church. This means that, technically, my talking rights on the subject matter are limited to “pray for the starving children and the dirty sinners too” or “one prayer = one like”. However, I’m going to talk about prayer anyway; because, like my Nana, I do it all the time, and I feel as though that gives me some sort of metaphysical cred.
A while ago, I wrote about what being a Christian meant for me, and since then I can tentatively say that I’ve let the Christian label go in favour of something more suited to my tailored system of faith. My new label is yet to be announced, or even fabricated, but once I know exactly where I sit on the spiritual spectrum I’ll be writing something about it, you can guarantee (because I simply love labels and declaring my personal life to the internet). For now, let’s just say that whatever I am is a sprouting mixture of Humanism, Christianity, bits of Buddhism, numerous hospital mindfulness sessions, and a lot of inspirational quotes from Instagram.
Out of this evolving-hybrid-mutt of a personal ideology, prayer has been the steadfast pillar.
Whenever I’m asked, “are you a Christian?” I now very simply respond with, “mm, I meditate and pray to God everyday”. It’s both concise enough to make me sound spiritually attuned, and vague enough for me sound completely clueless. Both interpretations ideally opting me out of discussing the religious pedantries of whether or not we truly need to be saved by Jesus, if God’s actually a man, and what even is an afterlife? All of which I think absolutely nothing about. I’m too busy worrying about real life things like money, my general health, and whether or not I’ve remembered to lock the back door on my way out.
Not only is “I meditate and I pray to God everyday” an excellent conversational cop out, it’s also as simplistic as I need my ever evolving faith to be. I mean, I don’t know if you’ve seen the Bible, but it’s fucking huge. I could just appropriate a select few messages from there to suit my young, modern, female self and live my life by those rules to a T as has been done by many a white guy over the past few hundred years; but I’m a millennial with a short attention span, so I’m not even going to do that. You know us, we’re of a microwave culture where we want everything and we want it now, damnit! Thus, I’d rather just skip the fine print and get straight to the part where I’m in sync with this almighty creator and life source that everyone’s been going on about (to at least some extent) since the beginning of human consciousness. Even more than that, I’d rather just recognise that this almighty creator and life source is an intrinsic part of me and the reason I get to enjoy and endure all of what makes me human.
Prayer and meditation instantly grant me these things; and the practise has become as easy as waking up in the morning and marvelling, however briefly and in whatever way, at the fact that there’s another day.
To me, meditation is living in all of life’s stillness and swift, and prayer is grappling to understand that there is a time and a place for both. It is intimacy, touch, learning to be open and vulnerable, it is hurt, it is isolation and solitude, and it is learning to embrace all of these things in spite of fear.
Prayer and meditation to me is looking up at the sky over breakfast and being both grateful and proud that I’ve made it as far as I have; it’s sitting in conversation with friends and choosing to be with them and for them in whatever moment they happen to be in; and it’s hugging the family I haven’t seen in while like I only saw them last week.
Prayer and meditation is acknowledging that there has, is, and will continue to be a lot of pain and discomfort, and wondering if I should, shouldn’t, can or can’t do anything about it. It’s also acknowledging that for every bad thing that there is, there will always be something good: be it as extraordinary as swimming in the ocean, or as basic as having my favourite tea bags in the pantry.
More simply put, my spiritual practice is now guided by me being curious about what it means to be alive; and this simple act of being alive is how I get to pray all the time, every day. In doing this for myself, I feel more in touch with the God I remember first being in awe of when I five years old; my capacity for love of all sorts has increased tenfold; and the more I allow myself to experience all of what it means to be to be human, the more I can see and appreciate the human in everyone else (I know I go on about empathy a lot, but that stuff truly is the shit).
I’m not sure if this is exactly what Nana meant when she said she prayed all the time because we really, really need it; but her devotions have been an exceptional life lesson in how I enjoy and endure all of what makes me human. By choosing to be in sync with my every day, I am directly connected with some almighty creator and life source; and this has enabled resilience, strength of character, love, empathy, and pride in my identity through the very highs, the very lows, the in-the-middles, and the scary bits of life that I haven’t necessarily wanted to do.
My kind of prayer helps me to do and to know all of these things, and it’s by this sort of perpetual curiosity that I can so bravely live; which, in my own book, is well and truly worthy of a resounding amen.