On prayer

Prayer is an extremely controversial subject. Many of my friends truly believe that it can change every aspect of their lives, but my very closest, generous, loving friend of 52 years and my also generous, loving sweetheart don’t believe in it.

Even some of the members of our Unitarian Universalist Church are rather dubious about prayer. Our church is so liberal that we are never told that we should pray for certain people or events or that we should believe in certain rituals or teachings. We are simply taught to respect each other, to grow and change and, together, to try to make this world better in whatever ways we can.

Despite these differences about prayer, I do believe in it. A wonderful quote from Kierkegaard states exactly how I feel on the subject: “The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.”

Mahatma Gandhi’s words about prayer are also favorites of mine: “Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.”

When I pray, I don’t ask God to make my life easier. I don’t ask Him to cure a friend’s illness or fix our country’s politics. I don’t ask for more rain or less rain, or more warmth or less warmth. I certainly don’t pray to have certain teams win football games, or even certain candidates to win elections.

I simply express my gratitude to God for life itself, for my family, for my friends, for my health, for our liberal church, for the joy I receive from playing music, for the beauty of our earth. I believe that the God to whom I pray knows what is needed in our world far better than I do, and thus my relationship with Him is not one of making suggestions, much less pleas, but rather it is simply one of trust and gratitude.

There were some years, back in graduate school and my early teaching days, when I didn't believe in prayer. But looking back, I realize that during those years I felt sad that I couldn't--or rather, that I didn't--thank God for all of my blessings. Prayer gives one a feeling that most everyone would agree is essential, a feeling of gratefulness for life itself.

Along with Gandhi and Kierkegaard, another man I have always admired tremendously is Elie Wiesel. After going through the horror of a concentration camp and losing his parents and younger sister, he of course became terribly depressed and full of doubt.  As he said of himself in “Night,” "The student of the Talmud, the child that I was, had been consumed in the flames. There remained only a shape that looked like me.”

For 10 years after the war he couldn’t even talk about his experience, but after that he began a lifelong commitment to tell the story and to beg people to remain committed to justice. As he put it, “Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

He considers prayer an essential in his own life as well as the lives of others, saying, “If the only prayer you say throughout your life is ‘Thank You,’ then that will be enough.”

Making a start on this blog

I'm Linda Jo's 'techie', Andrew Leat, and she's agreed to let me post her columns as blogs. This will make them easier to find and group them in one place. From time to time I may add a thought of my own, or a poem she wrote before that muse left her.

For a start, here's a recent column of hers.

What Are Patterns For?

I was most pleased to meet Alan Smith, a close boyhood friend of my sweetheart, Andrew.

Andrew and Alan lived just a few houses apart in their village in England and went to school together, but their lives couldn’t have been more different. Whereas Andrew had a warm, loving family, Alan was virtually fatherless. His dad, who worked for the railroad in London, would usually come home for a quick supper and hasten off to the pub, where he would spend the whole evening pursuing and achieving total inebriation.

Things were even worse when Alan’s father did occasionally stay home, for he fought with his wife and beat his children. After one especially fierce scene, Alan and his two brothers were sent to live with relatives, and after some time there, Alan was sent to an orphanage.

I hear you sighing, remembering orphanages in "Oliver Twist” or stories of orphan trains in this country. But for Alan, his stay in the orphanage was the happiest time of his childhood. Life finally seemed fair.

When he and another boy tried to hoard toys and make the others pay to use them, the headmaster sat down with the two boys and reasoned, with their help, that the toys belonged to everyone. If one child tried to take them away from others, a fair punishment should be mutually agreed upon and consistently carried out.

After some time passed (Alan was only about five and doesn't remember how long he stayed there), he was told that he would get to leave the orphanage by train and go home. Rather than rejoicing, little Alan wondered what  he had done wrong. Whatever it was, it must have been grievous for him to be thrown out of the orphanage, a home he had come to love.

Carted off to the train station, he was introduced to a railroad employee who was told to see that he was put off in his hometown. In his loneliness and confusion, little Alan attached himself to the train employee, only to have that man deliver him to a stranger, saying, "This is your father; he will take you home now.” Again, Alan painfully wondered what he had  done wrong to lose the only attachment he had left.

The rest of Alan's childhood was filled with stormy scenes.

He was a bright lad, however, and didn't let his childhood cripple him. He went on to do a five-year apprenticeship at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, emigrated to Ontario, Canada and had a successful career as a technician at Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. After age 17, he had no  more contact with his cruel father, but his time in the orphanage somehow gave him a strong sense of logic, of consequences, of actions and reactions which carried over into his precise work and personal life as a successful pilot and airstrip owner.

Now believe me, I‘m not saying that orphanages are places that generally help children think better or become happier. It’s just that in the case of Alan, most anything would have been preferable to home. He desperately needed help in learning that life can be safe, fair and logical.

When I heard the story of Alan’s childhood, I couldn’t help thinking of Amy Lowell’s famous poem “Patterns,” in which she asks “What are patterns for?”

That's what patterns are for, Amy Lowell. That's what patterns are for.