"As when you pray you do not thereby remove yourself from this life of yours but in your praying refer your thought to it, even though it may be in order to yield to it; so too in the unprecedented and surprising, when you are called upon from above, required, chosen, empowered, sent, you with this your mortal bit of life are meant. This moment is not extracted from it, it rests on what has been and beckons to the remainder that still has to be lived. You are not swallowed up in a fullness without obligation, you are willed for the life of communion."
- Martin Buber, Meetings: Autobiographical Fragments
I should preface any discussion of this passage by talking about "this life" as I understand Buber to mean it. Buber says, "I possess nothing but the everyday out of which I am never taken." He is talking about a way of knowing oneself and understanding one's own experiences (in this case his own experience) through mortal existence. "I know no fullness but each mortal hour's fullness can claim of responsibility." So, to pray naturally becomes an act of directing directing one's thought to one's life - one's life as it is lived in the moment, moment by moment, hour upon hour, day bound by days past and days yet to live.
What does one ask for in prayer? Is it a re-purposing into a new job? Is it another day for a dying loved one? Perhaps it is unfair of me to ask, or even to make a general statement about the nature of communication between anybody else and God, but I have a few personal observations. In the Lutheran Church of my grandparents I distinctly remember the pastor praying that more days come to the sick and dying members of the congregation "if it be his will." This always struck me as an important qualifier; it acknowledges a number of things by admitting that death may well be fit. One, that there is a great deal of suffering involved in our hourly existence, or can be, as is often the case with sick and dying people. Another, that death may relieve suffering. Most importantly, and the one quality that made the prayers agreeable to this little boy, was that hourly beings have no experience of higher order, supernatural, or the future - our only knowledge of it comes to us from faith.
Perhaps it is evident that I don't understand prayer and further evident that I have a peculiar experience with it. I have always wondered how one might earnestly ask God for something. I have also wondered what the purpose of group asking may be. One thing it does do is express sympathy and concern to the ones closest to the subject of the prayer. Loved ones sometimes are healed, wants sometimes addressed.
Later on I attended a different church where I didn't hear the familiar and important clause, "if it be your will." In this place I learned that to pray can be a way of communicating with God by setting time apart from your daily routine and directing thought to him about your wants. I experimented with this form of prayer, but it never stuck. I couldn't accept the notion that I know what I truly want for myself because I believed that God knew (and would inevitably do) whatever is best for me. All of my wants, which were mostly for things: nintendo, dirt bike etc. Even as a child I understood that getting these things did not satisfy any deep craving or desire. I knew that I should not mix the realms of expressing my wants with my trust that "His will be done on earth.." The whole business of expressing faith out loud didn't make sense to me, especially when mixed with human wants.
I keep saying "wants" because I don't want this term to be confused with desires. A desire, to me, expresses a longing for an enduring condition (closeness, happiness, health) all things aimed at a moment, but extending beyond it. A want I would like to use here as something that can be something that can be satisfied and is pending the moment of delivery (some money, a miracle). Usually the expression of a want comes from an imagining of a future condition, so as to say "please do/give/ what have you ________ because/so that _______." The two modes are fundamentally different. In the expression of wants, the moment is gobbled up with anticipatory "results."
I couldn't see prayer as a "time apart from time" or a "timeless time" but rather a time for reflection, meekness, submission to God's will and affirmation of my existence in this creation. The emotions of surprise, empowerment, purpose ... went along with the territory. I would never now call any expression of my wants "prayer."
I am impressed with analysis and the conclusions reached in this post. "To Create My Own Values" fits this perfectly.
ReplyDeleteDo you think maybe some people pray to give thanks for all they have?
I certainly hope that many people pray to give thanks. Insisting on the dignity of things and their goodness is an act that I think is fundamental to a meaningful existence. It insists on there being something, and further that that something is good! It strikes me as something that would foster community and good will among all humans, regardless of their religion, if they all insisted on the goodness of existence.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletePART I
ReplyDeleteI have this broken up into three segments because I didn’t make time to form a unifying argument.
1.) Group Religion “I have also wondered what the purpose of group asking may be.”
My suspicion is that your curiosity about the purpose of “group asking” in prayer may actually give a lot more possible insights to what is going on with prayer.
I take prayer to be a device that changes function with time and place.
Here are some divisions that I saw in your post:
1.) Prayer as meditation
2.) Praying for materials or non-cyclical desires ( a new bike, a n64)
3.) Praying for cyclical wants or desires( happiness, health,)
I draw the line a little more definitely between meditation prayer and the others, and I blur the distinction between the other two categories and treat them both as asking prayers.
Examining prayer as meditation your curiosity about group prayer can be hypothesized about. If we are simply setting time out of our day to stop and think about things we like or want to change in our lives, then it makes sense that occasionally you would want to check your answers and share with others. Even if the pastor is the one always leading prayer, you are still provided with talking points to use with other church members and, at the very least, you have a minimum of one other opinion on life for comparison with your own. Getting together with people in a community and sharing problems with a “god” is also a good way to get out the needs of the community in a socially non-threatening way. Prayers given in a group setting can, in a sense, actually be answered because they are shared with a body of active community members who will be socially rewarded within the church for being a helpful neighbor.
PART II
ReplyDelete2.) Consuming God: “nintendo, dirt bike etc.” and “Lasting effects”
To complement your discussion of “Wants/desires” I would forward the following argument:
The move of prayer into the realm of personal consumption and, in a sense, the move of god into a personal commodity which you have a one-on-one relationship with is an effect of capitalism. This takes a minute so stay with me. At work I make things which I do not get to use or sell myself, because I am alienated from them by the business owner. Not only that, but I am not asked for input on how to design or change what it is I am working on, thus severing my intellectual labor from my physical labor. The possibility of finding happiness in creativity and production is made overly difficult by these fragmentations. I can go and sell myself to a job without any joy in it but consuming is left wide open. Personal consumption is thus given an indecent amount of focus.
Now for the religious connection. The idea that god is something that we need to have personally within us, that it is something we need to have a personal relationship with and that we can use for advice or ask for things, these are developments that all smack of a refocus on god as something to consume.
Catholicism, before the 1840’s at least, was heavily focused on the gathering of people together for communion with “god”. The leaders of the church were the ones with the scriptures and the community would gather to be given the information together, and reading from religious texts alone was not common. However, capitalisms hyper-focus on personal consumption has moved this once social act into the private sphere - bringing people into communion with their “personal savior” complete with their own bible and one-on-one relationship with god. The necessity of group connection is somewhat muted. Even within the market, the fact that I sold wine or something any other sacrilegious object to get the money to go buy my bible is completely obscured by the opacity of money. “God” had become consumable and, to quote from Marx, “We have all become Protestants”.
PART III
ReplyDelete3.) Gratefulness: I am suspicious
I am suspicious of gratefulness because it is use to make a problems into something naturalized and unavoidable. Through out history, gratefulness, has been a word directed at those who are in bad conditions and who would like more and it is used to placate them by telling them, “well, at least we can be happy for what we have” - even if what they have is a shack over their heads, two parents working 12-16 hours a day and a sick kid. It is placating because it does not hint that their might be someone or thing to blame for the conditions, rather it says that conditions have just been handed to us- like a gift. Since it was given, in other words, since it is treated as a given it would make no sense to do something about but be grateful we got as much as we did. Gratefulness also works on those of us who are in the position of oppressors. In the case of the oppressors gratefulness again treats the whole situation as out of everybody’s hands. I can gather around a table filled with a tremendous amount of food, more than it would be sensible to eat, and I am allowed to say “let’s be thankful for what we have been given.” as if it were all there because somebody stopped by and handed it too us and there was no way to change it. Meanwhile the T.V. in the basement is broadcasting images of starvation and poverty, from the part of humanity that has accumulated misery in order that I may accumulate my wealth. Class oppression is dismissed on both sides. If I am thankful for something, it is not a leap to say I think it is the best thing available and only a leap to assume I approve of it. But, I do not approve of it! I do not wish to approve of it. I have a cyclical desire to not approve of it, and do something about it until it changes.
Ben,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your comments very much. I had hoped that this blog might provoke genuine exchange, which I take your comments to be. Frankly, I thought that the blog format somehow bounded this possibility to much shorter exchanges (under the heading and connotations of "comment"). I thought that having a meaningful discussion was not really feasible in this format. But, the thoroughness and thoughtfullness of your response demonstrates, to me at least, that meaningful and thorough sharing can happen between two people using this format. I am happy and surprised.
Now, I realize that I haven't yet taken the time to respond to you. I think a new post may be in order.
Wishing you well,
Erik
I love Erik.
ReplyDeleteThis is why I post so much freaking text about his blogs.
much love and I miss you
Ben