Prayers

 

            I find myself again writing about something I know nothing about. And again, I’m not letting that ignorance stop me.

 

            Prayer. The first and most frequent prayer I’ve said is the one that begins, “Now I lay me down to sleep.” I said the prayer pretty much every night for about three or four years, as I recall. I do not recall being alarmed by reciting, “And if I die before I wake / I pray to God my soul to take,” a speculation that would not, I suspect, lead one to an easy sleep – adult or child. The most serious part of this prayer, for me, was the listing of people, mainly family, who I was asking God to bless. Usually they all made the cut, and I assume that the blessing that I asked God to deliver was, in fact, delivered.

 

            A prayer, then, is when a person is asking God to do something – in this case, to take my soul to Heaven if I should happen to die in my sleep. I’ve learned that some versions of the prayer ask for protection from dying in your sleep, but not my version. God, then, is some sort of Heavenly Father – a lot like a king or father who hears your request and has the power to grant it. “The Big Guy in the Sky” is one way that God was described, somewhat lightheartedly. William Blake, coming up with his own pantheon of gods, called Him “Nobodaddy.”

 

            But there is more to prayer than a request to a superpower. Last week I was speaking with my friend Don about some health concerns, and he said, “We are praying for you.” My response: “Thanks . . . I feel it.” And I did. I was, of course, feeling the warmth of friendship, but what else? Could it be that Don was projecting healing energy into the universe, and it reached Kim and me? Maybe that’s what prayer is – how it works . . .? Maybe the key, then, is to be sincere in projecting mental/spiritual energy (prayer), and then to be receptive to prayers directed your way.

 

            Google tells me that prayer is a way of communicating with a higher power. (I try not to be discouraged by the role the higher power of Artificial Intelligence might play in creating this definition.) I like the openness of “a higher power,” which makes me think of ways that I feel the universe is communicating with me. When we look at a divinely beautiful sunrise over Torch Lake, and we also notice that there are no appealing housing options in or around Traverse City, I feel that the universe is telling us to stay put. The universe tells us this without my asking through prayer, and without using God as an intermediary. And there are times when we see that sunrise, or when we are enjoying a candlelight conversation on our porch, and we know that our life is blessed – despite the pains and losses from growing old. (By the way, I like the word “growing” in the phrase “growing old.”) And I’m not much interested in who or what is doing the blessing. Blessed happens. 

 

            Receiving and perceiving a blessing is pretty much under our control. But how do you launch a blessing? The simplest way may be to ask God to do it: send Him a prayer, and He will find a way to deliver the blessing, probably with some sort of evaluation of the recipient. But I’m hoping there is a way to eliminate the middleMan and radiate the blessing through the universe to the recipient, much as Don did for Kim and me. Or maybe what I’m calling “the universe” is what others call God. Language falls short.

 

            I realize that this piece of writing is like the “Hail Mary” play in football, where success is almost impossible without some sort of divine assistance. I’ll take it . . ..