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.”