My friend, Nick Santoro, wrote a letter to a couple of local and state publications in response to the Palestinian / Israeli war. He ended it with this pithy invitation:
“If you somehow pray, ask for forgiveness for our unending human barbarity and seek peace.”
I took that in
As a kind of prayer.
I know this man prays
So it is not hard for me
To picture him ending his brief but ardent
Condemnation of the war
With a prayer for forgiveness.
Beautiful.
But forgiveness from whom?
I’m being rhetorical.
I know there are people who
Are almost offended by the idea of God.
But, knowing this man
As well as I do,
I don’t think he is asking “God”
To forgive us.
But I’m not going to ask him
Who or what
He is asking forgiveness from.
I don’t need to.
I want to talk about prayer.
What is prayer?
One thing I know is
Prayer is completely misunderstood.
People who pray,
On a regular basis,
. . . I think they know what it is.
People who don’t pray
Or can’t pray, don’t get it.
They completely misunderstand it.
Of course they don’t get it!
I’m not being smug here.
How much of the human race prays?
I think most people pray, in some form.
I feel for people who don’t understand prayer
And I believe they are in a shrinking minority.
Most prayers are prayed in times of crisis.
People pray when they are scared
Or up against a wall.
Or they pray to supplement their chances
Of seeing something resolved
Or of passing the burden of living
On to some ethereal donkey!
And if something shifts for better or for worse
They don’t think,
Oh, praying worked.
They don’t remember that they prayed at all.
Crisis puts you in the moment.
When you are scared or in pain
That is all you have room for.
Prayer doesn’t require space.
And it doesn’t usually get instant results.
But does it work?
What do you think?
If you pray you might say, I think it works.
Or you might shrug and say
That’s not the point.
So what is the point?
Praying is about a special relationship
Between me and the universe.
I have said this before:
That as I get older my relationship with the universe
Is becoming more personal.
Spirit to me is the intelligence behind all of this.
I don’t think of myself as being in charge of much.
I try to take responsibility for myself
And I try to be accountable,
But as for understanding how a flower works
Or why a flower needs to be so beautiful
Baffles me, in a good way.
Why didn’t the intelligence of the universe
Just create a perfect flower
Or a perfect whatever,
But thousands of varieties of flowers?
It’s almost as if there was a moment
When creation fell crazy-in-love with its own creation!
And maybe that is the point of creation.
Creation for the sake of creation.
I don’t think perfection has much to do with creation.
I think creation is about the ecstasy of infinite choices.
People can choose but their choices are limited.
In the morning, as I face into my day
I can choose between different ways to spend my day.
If I was in a hospital bed because
I was sick enough to be in a hospital,
My choices would be very limited
But I would still have choices to make.
Spirit / creator moves beyond choice
But I am imagining that the intelligence of the universe
Is in the position to choose from an infinity of . . .
Patterns?
What?
The kind of intelligence that creates on the scale of worlds
Processes in terms of patterns.
An infinite intelligence,
Such as the kind of intelligence
Behind the creation of a world like Earth . . .
Must “think” in terms of infinite patterns.
Patterns of matter and energy
Patterns of matter and energy in flux.
That exist in time and interact together
In unfathomable ways
That cumulatively suggest a “creation”.
Prayer functions in the realm of energy.
If spoken aloud it manifests as vibration.
Prayer is itself creative.
It is a creation.
But just what kind of creation it is
Depends on the feelings and sentiments
That are carried by the vibration.
Sometimes when I pray
A wind begins to stir
And I imagine that the wind becomes a carrier of my prayer.
But what if the prayer is just a thought
Surrounding an emotion?
Is a thought real?
Is an emotional real?
But if you ask the “average” person if these are real. . .
(Just humor me here, and let’s imagine
That there are average people in our midst . . .)
They might say, Yes.
Or they might say, I guess so.
Or they might say, recalling a heated argument
With a partner and how
All those emotional exchanges sent
The relationship into a tailspin . . . Sure!
But not as real as an ambulance coming along
With its siren blaring and lights flashing!
There are different kinds of “real”.
I think we can all agree on that.
And we can agree that what I just said about
Aloud prayers being real (emotion / vibration)
Is credible.
But are silent prayers real?
Are they effective?
That all depends on one’s relationship with
Who or what one is praying to.
How real is that relationship?
With silent prayer it gets really personal
Which works for me
Because, as I say, as I get older
Everything gets more personal,
Including my relationship with spirit.
I would guess that most prayers are not silent.
But that most prayers are quiet,
Whispered prayers,
with lips moving.
My friend’s letter, and especially his last sentence
Inspired me to write about prayer.
And his prayer, if it is a prayer,
Was just a line of written words.
But those words, that prayer
Rippled out to me,
And rippled through me.
I hope it also ripples out to you.
And since I do pray (read my lips):
Spirit / Creator / God / Intelligence of the universe hear me: Please forgive our unending barbarity and help us seek peace.
Gary Lindorff - Nine Waves 