The Practice of Prayer
Sermon | October 25, 2020 | Rev. Julie Lombard
For a month I have been yammering on about spiritual practices. I’ve told you about some pranksters making crop circles, we looked at leadership is a spiritual practice, last week Emmy inspired us all to get into a garden again, and today, I invite you to pray as a spiritual practice.
Prayer is one of those touchy topics especially for any who long ago left behind having sacred conversations with a higher power. But I want to share some wisdom found in the UU World magazine to remind us of the power of prayer.
In the summer 2020 edition, there were three articles on this spiritual practice; one from the UUA President and two from other ministers. Susan Fredrick-Gray admitted that she was a stranger to prayer growing up in a UU church. She only found her way to it in college when she found herself at a crossroads. No longer being drawn to study science, she wondered what might come next.
Each day she would sit in silence and find a stillness. She’d light a candle, and ask the big questions: What brings me joy? What makes me come alive? What is my path?
It was that practice of deep listening that guided her to ministry and to become the first woman UUA President. She found that prayer prepared her despite not being a theist.
Prayer offers her an opening where she can listen for clarity in the midst of fear. She calls attention to her breath as she relaxes into her being. She does an inventory of feelings and what is present. She looks for tension and or calm in her body and she invites herself to breathe, listen, and be attentive.
She sometimes turns to poetry or wise words to inspire her prayer. For her, it is a way to give voice to what we hold in our hearts, a way to remember our interconnectedness, to be grateful for the gift of life and to name the hopes for one another and the world we live in.
She hopes we too can rediscover the wisdom, the power, and the gifts that are present in prayer. She believes this kind of humility is essential for the maturity of our faith.
Next, we turn to Manish, who unlike Susan did not grow up UU. He grew up trying to be the best Hindu he could be. As a child, he prayed constantly. When he prayed for a younger brother- poof, he got one. So, he believed in prayer. Until as a teen, he found all his praying away being gay wasn’t working. Feeling hurt and deeply disappointed in God and prayer, he discarded both.
Eventually, he found this faith. But on a football field, as a minister in training, he was asked to lead the team in prayer. His mind raced off with the important question: Does God really care who wins a football game?
He found himself in a vocation of spiritual leadership with no personal relationship other than that which he rejected. Later, while doing chaplaincy training in a hospital, he was asked to pray, again. This time facing the most heartbreaking circumstances: families facing the loss of children and babies. Those families often asked him to lead them in prayer. Feeling somewhat ambushed by the universe, he found himself praying for those families.
In prayer, he witnessed how we pour our hopes into them- pleading for a change, hoping for an impossible outcome, and also simply as a way of being in relationship with whatever we wrestle with. But it wasn’t until he found himself shouting a soul-felt, deep-seated cry of a prayer that he realized it is a form of communication, a reflection of being in a relationship.
He believes that in order to have a relationship, we must talk and share our heartfelt realities because without such intimacy, a relationship is likely to be shallow and meaningless. This is true for all relationships- one with a friend, with God, with nature, and even with oneself.
If we want a deep relationship, he urges us to make time and leave the necessary openness for the depth of communication that’s needed. Meaningful relationships do not emerge out of nothingness, he reminds us. Prayer has power as a form of sacred conversation because it gives us a place to speak truth in vulnerability and honesty. Manish believes prayer helps us communicate with the Cosmos; it creates relationship where otherwise there might be none.
And then there’s Jennifer’s article about the practice of sacred conversation. She flashed back to her seminary days, standing outside before class began, praying with seminarians in the Chicago chill. The steam from their mouths lifted their communal prayers making all their longing visible.
Through her spiritual practice, she has become a better communicator, a better listener, and a better observer of the holy in all. It grounds and inspires her. Prayer allowed her to better believe in, accept, and love herself. It provided her sustenance to grow and co-create loving relationships with others.
This kind of prayer Jennifer writes about brings me back to Haverhill, MA while serving as their ministerial intern. Every Sunday, before worship began, Rev. Frank would gather us in his office. All those involved in worship were there, the Worship Associate and Staff were invited to hold hands as he lead us in what I fondly called ‘the prayer huddle’.
In the huddle, he would ask that we offer the message the people needed to hear. May it bring comfort and challenge, may we be united in this sacred work and may it make the world a better place.
After the Amen, the organist would leap up the stairs to the organ loft as the other four made our way to the back of the sanctuary. An as the organ began the prelude, we slowly entered the sanctuary from behind. First the Director of Religious Education beside the Worship Associate, then the two robed ministers, side-by-side, would make our way down the aisle to our seats at the front of the church. This prayer- both the huddle and the procession struck me as a stark departure from my previous UU prayer experiences, but it moved me, deeply. It readied me for what was to come. The importance of the work we were doing was elevated through our prayer whether it was spoken or walked.
This morning, Sonja sang our chalice lighting as it is done at the Concord UU Church where I raised my kids. This prayer is sung weekly by the entire congregation as the chalice is lit. My kids would get as giddy about singing it as our kids here do about singing Go Now in Peace. Yes, hymns are prayers, too. Didn’t we hear our hearts sing during Spirit of Life?
I didn’t know what I was truly going home to last week as I return to work remotely in NH while visiting my family. I couldn’t get on the plane. We found a mistake in the ticket- the ticket was for my husband, not me. The name couldn’t be changed on the ticket, so I bought a new one and silently prayed it would get me home.
It did, but earlier than expected. My husband wasn’t available to get me in Boston at the new time, so I prayed that my friend could pick me up. She did, and we were so happy to be united. She left me at my house, but I wasn’t certain who’d be home, so I rushed in and up the stairs to knock on the door of my child’s bedroom. Maybe they were napping or studying?
After knocking, I slowly opened the door. And like a dead skunk on the side of the road, the potent smell hit me. There was pot in the room. My nose began sniffing out the illegal items as my prayers urged me on. I emptied the room of the items, notified my husband, and we began planning. Punishment, of course, but when would it start? I want to enjoy my teen before we got hip deep in the heaviness of what was coming.
So, we waited until after we enjoyed dinner, and after PSATs, and a visit with our older child at college before we had the tough conversation. Prayer was what kept me steady throughout those days.
Later in the week, I visited my mother who struggles with dementia. I wasn’t sure I what I would find there. She had been sending inappropriate emails and not answering my calls from TX.
I knocked on her door and entered her house fully masked. She was busy constructing another email, but before long she was swimming in an outpouring of tears. She suffers from loneliness and she was stuck in a negative loop probably made worse with her illness. I stayed with her and tried to calm her. It worked, and later she sent an appropriate email thanking me for my visit.
Serving you in TX as my family lives across the country in NH, I need the power of prayer every day. I pray that my kids will stay clear of pot. I pray that my mother will get the help she needs. I pray that my brother who plans to give his vote to a candidate I disagree with will change his mind. I pray for my husband to have the strength to parent a teen nearly alone.
I pray that I am serving you in the way that best serves you during this pandemic. I pray that the election will go smoothly, that there will be no civil unrest or need for sanctuary. I pray for us and for a kinder world. I pray that we stop abusing our planet and we help her to become healthier and wild, again. In Prayer, I connect with myself, with all that I love, with all that is holy, and I share all that is in my heart because I know that this prayer is more than enough in these challenging times.
I pray that you find a way to converse deeply with all you are in relationship with and bless those meaningful conversations, sacred, and soul growing ones, too. May your prayers flow out in song, or while walking, or in the misty breath from your lips on a chilly day. May you pray while you hiking in the mountains or tending to your gardens. May each vote casted be a prayer for integrity in the White House.
Pray, my friends, each and every day, not only for your fears, but also for what you are most grateful for- pray for this gift of life that we share. Pray for this faith that urges us on during the hardest of times. Let us pray.
Blessed be. Amen.