Dear Members and Friends of UMA,
What is prayer I am often asked. There are many layers to prayer. There are the prayers we were taught as children to say to God as we kneeled by our beds with our hands clasped, the “now I lay me down to sleep” prayers. There are the prayers we recite together in church for ourselves, our families, friends, community, nation, the planet and the world. There are the prayers of confession where we look back upon the week to reflect upon where we may have fallen short of our human capacity for forgiveness of ourselves and of others. There is the Lord’s Prayer, the one that reminds us of God’s Kingdom on Earth and what we must do to embody it.
The writer, Ann Lamott says that there are two kinds of prayers, the help me, help me, help me kind and the thank you, thank you, thank you kind. Those prayers we ask for God to give us what we want or what we need. And the prayers where we count our blessings.
But I add another, the “and now what can I do” kind of prayer. The kind of prayer that is a living prayer. A prayer that we embody throughout the day. The one that allows us to speak up for justice with a compassionate heart. The one that allows us to see each person we encounter as a Child of God, regardless of what they look like, what music they listen to, who they voted for, who they love, what they do, where they came from, how much or how little they have. The prayer of reverence and care for the earth and all things thereon.
This “and now what can I do prayer” is the most difficult of prayers but also the most soul filling kind of prayer because when we love as Jesus taught us we too feel the love beyond understanding fill our souls, our hearts and our minds.
May you pray often and all day!