Modern Prayers

 

Durer, Praying Hands

When I was young, and in the umbra of Vatican II, I always felt hounded by the demand that we must pray extemporaneously instead of by rote. That always felt wrong to me. Sometimes you felt like it, but most often you did not. So were you just not supposed to pray? Or be insincere to God himself?

There is great power in set prayer formulae. It is the power we recognize as soon as we call it a “mantra.” With rote prayer, it is possible to pray without ceasing.

Of course, there is a place as well for speaking to God as a friend; when one has a particular problem or question to pose.

Both forms of prayer have their value. 

Friend Xerxes recently objected to the “Our Father,” and suggested instead several modern alternatives.

His core complaint is that it encourages an “unthinking” idea of God as an “all-knowing all-seeing old-man-in-the-sky.” A concept that he finds untenable.

I can’t agree with his basic premise, that the “Our Father” depicts God as an “old man in the sky.” The sky is not mentioned. It says he is in heaven. Is that “the sky”?

Where is heaven? Jesus, who gave us the words of the prayer, tells us: “the kingdom of heaven is within (or among) you.”

At the same time, the physical heavens as metaphor is valuable to prevent supposing God is only “in here,” and not also “out there,” pervading the cosmos. He is not merely some Jungian archetype.

“I have trouble,” Xerxes continues, “with God as the hyper-engineer who keeps everything running, who fixes things we can’t fix for ourselves, who feeds us sliced bread and steers us out of temptation.”

But that is not the Christian God either. The prayer says “Our Father.” Doesn’t that sound more like a mother?

Like a father, he allows us our free will, and expects things of us. He is not going to do everything for us; he is judgmental, not unquestioningly supportive like a mother.

The modern prayers Xerxes cites as preferable to the “Our Father” all strip out this masculine imagery.

For example:

“Holy One, holy one-ness, in us and around us and beyond us,”

--removes both masculinity and personhood.

I’m with William Blake on this: humanity cannot conceptualize anything greater than a perfect human. Anything else is less, and an inadequate image of God. You care more for your father than for the number one.

“Separate us from the temptations of power, and draw us into your community.”

Why power? This suggests that power is the only motive for sin.

“the empowerment around us,”

Again power--praying for power. This sounds like an impious obsession with power. Which, I may say, defines postmodernism.

“and the celebration among us, now and always. Amen.”

This is a significant change, because the original, the “Our Father,” says nothing about celebration, let alone celebrating “always.” Instead, it implies that something is wrong with the world: that God’s will is not yet done.

To assert that all is right with the world is callous towards the suffering. And unquestioningly supportive of the powerful.

“O Great Love, thank you for living and loving in us and through us.”

This loses the two essential points of Christianity: that God loves us, and that we are to love God.

That God is Love requires understanding God as Trinity, because love is a Trinity. Love cannot exist without Lover and Beloved.

To attempt to conceive love as a pure abstract entity is to eliminate love from the conversation. Being in love with love is callous, the opposite of love.

“May all that we do flow from our deep connection with you and all beings.”

Connectedness is only half of the equation; this is a monist rather than a Christian sentiment. It would require that all we do must flow from our deep connection with the devil, not to mention the Mafia, Nazis, the KKK, or animal parasites and predators, without discrimination.

Xerxes concludes with a passage from a book, Richard Wagamese’s “Embers,” which he proposes might be ideal:

“I am the trees alive with singing.

I am the sky everywhere at once.

I am the snow and the wind bearing stories across geographies and generations.

I am light everywhere descending.

I am my heart evoking drum song.

I am my spirit rising.

I am my prayers and my meditation, and I am time fully captured in this now.

I am a traveller on a sacred journey through this one shining day.”

In simplest terms, “I am God.”

This again is monist, and Advaita Vedanta, not Christian. Identifying God with self is moving backwards on the Christian (or Buddhist) path. That is what Lucifer did, and what Adam and Eve did.

Lead us not into evil.

Amen