A Ferocious Passion

For too many, prayer is boring.  Come on, admit it.  Is it something you look forward to each day? Does the thought of praying excite you? Distract you with the very anticipation of it?  When you first open your eyes from sleep in the morning, is your first thought “Yes! I can’t wait to pray!”

And what do you really think of when you think of praying? Is it a Rockwell-esque image of an apple-cheeked child kneeling by her bed before sleep, bathed in beams of light-gold, hands together, head bowed, reciting “Now I lay me down to sleep...”?  Or perhaps an elderly woman in a quiet empty church, crooked fingers caressing her beads before a Madonna, murmuring softly, eyes closed - a sonorous recital of words-run-together?  Or perhaps your thoughts run to the ever-safe “Lord’s Prayer”?  Though as a Catholic-turned Episcopalian (in my young adult years), I’d always have to be careful when visiting my mother and attending a Catholic Mass with her, not to accidentally add-in the extra “For thine is the Kingdom...” ending that Catholics felt impelled to leave out.

Does the word “passion” even enter your thoughts when you think of prayer?

I don’t think we “do” prayer well, nor do we teach it well, and perhaps that is because most people don’t really “get it”.  And it’s certainly not for want of trying.  A simple search on Amazon for books on “prayer” generates over 80,000 hits.  Googling “how to pray” brings up nearly 1.5 BILLION hits in 4.2 seconds!  (I know, crazy!)  Classes, seminars and retreats; podcasts, sermons and homilies - all united in the quest to figure out just how to connect with a God many cannot understand, cannot see, cannot hear. And this is not just a modern phenomenon; books and treatises and efforts to teach and understand prayer are as old as man, reaching back long before the first cave wall was inscribed and painted.

Why is this so hard?  My theory is that it’s because religion has made prayer all kinds of things it isn’t: a ritualistic exercise, a formula of words and timing, a religious duty with rules and expectations. Prayer is often elevated by many religions into the hallowed halls of “those who know how”, excluding those who don’t.  Prayer has become a skill to learn, a duty to perform, a task to tick-off on a list of to-do’s for the day. It has been touted as a secret process known only to a few, a form of meditation performed only by those appropriately “trained”; an elevated art form appreciated for its cadence and beauty, but lacking in passion and love.  We teach the “how” and “when”; we teach the history and rules and structure of prayer, but rarely do we get into the deep and true heart of the matter: the deep heart-passion of communicating with a loving God Who loves to listen. Where is the passion? That ferocious passion of the lover seeking The Lover? That all-in, falling-into-love that should be the hallmark of speaking to our Divine Creator and Lover of our soul?

Those who teach on prayer best are those who understand the true nature of prayer; that prayer has no rules, no structure, no formula.  Prayer has no specific form; you cannot teach rules and format for something that morphs with each day, adapting itself to each individual heart and mind, wrapping itself around the soul of a person like a warm sweater on a chilly day. That is not taught: it is experienced.

Because you see, I believe with all my heart that prayer is not something we do, but rather prayer is a state of being, a heart-posture of constant expectation, a turning toward the Divine One, an active (and dare I say frantic?) search to be united with the Source of our life.  Prayer is the way I position my heart toward the One I love, talking and laughing and crying with Him, pouring out every feeling and thought in every moment. Prayer is also the deep and sure knowledge that God understands me, sees me, listens to me - and yes - hears me. And when all is said and done - isn’t that what we all want? to be seen? heard? loved?

Prayer is hard to define because it is unique to each person, as unique as a fingerprint, as a strand of our DNA. The beauty of prayer is exactly that: your prayer will never be mine, and my prayer will never be yours. I cannot tell you how to do prayer, but I can share with you how to be before God - for that is really all prayer is. There is no formula, no rule, no secret sauce. I might have some suggestions, but each person needs to want to touch God’s heart desperately enough to begin the process of really praying. Prayer is a personal journey of exploration, and one that must be undertaken with passion - that ferocious passion that defines the deepest places in our heart for union with the Divine.

Jesus taught the Lord’s Prayer to his disciples when they asked him, “Lord, teach us to pray”. And he did; he showed them how he prayed. He showed them how he prayed to his Father, for that was who God was to Jesus; his Abba, his Daddy, his Papa. I don’t think Jesus intended us to take the Lord’s Prayer and write a formula from it; he simply gave the disciples an example of how he spoke to his Dad. But we’ve taken the Lord’s Prayer and turned it into a format for prayer (those 80,000 books on Amazon? Check to see how many are on the Lord’s Prayer itself) and then wonder why we find it lacking. It’s fine for a congregational prayer, for public exhortation and worship. But it is not the ferocious, deep heart-passion of a loved one talking to her Lover - not that gut-wrenching cry of the heart for recognition, for solace and comfort, for acceptance and love; that heart-wrenching sharing of love for the Lover of her soul. If we want to pray to move mountains, to heal, to change hearts, we have to move beyond the formula to the wild, abandoned and ferocious passion of love. We have to find our own voice before God, and use that voice to bring us to our knees - not necessarily our bodily knees, but our figurative knees of adoration, passion and love.

Jesus taught the disciples more about prayer than the Lord’s Prayer; he showed them how he did it. He lived his prayer life. He went off by himself every morning to spend time alone with Abba - to the mountain, to the lake, to the desert. He blessed food, he prayed over people all day - every day. He lived and breathed in concert with his Abba - his entire life was a prayer because that’s where his heart was; his passion was his great love for his Father and his hurting world; and he knew that his Abba shared that passion with him; they were as one. He told his disciples as much: “I don’t do or say anything that Abba hasn’t shared with me.” “I say only what he tells me to say.” “My Father and I are one.” Such holy identification came from his being so in tune with his Father that he was confident in never taking a false step, sure in the knowledge that his Father was listening to every word he said, every prayer he whispered - whether he was alone on a mountain or in the dessert, or surrounded by the hurting and hungry humanity of his day.

I think THAT is prayer; a ferocious passion that comes from a love so deep, the heart and mind are always tuned-in. It takes practice, this tuning in daily. It takes a single-minded passion of the heart that seeks to be with the Lover, no matter what. That ferocious passion positions the heart and mind daily so that in time we, too, become united with our Lover; he becomes the focus, the goal, the very heart of life.

Prayer is so much more when it is a state of being. Leaving the rules behind, look up and out; go in search of that great, ferocious passion that is your Abba, your God, your Lover. Once you find Him (and you will if you want to enough), you’ll never see prayer the same way again. I promise.