In the Interim- Starting with Prayer

Dear Friends,

A little over a dozen years ago, the author Anne Lamott published a book about prayer. The book’s title was Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers. In the book she wrote that she believed each word represented a kind of prayer—simple prayers that were essential to coming through tough times, difficult days, and the hardships of daily life. "Help." "Thanks." "Wow." Good places to start if you have something to say to God.

I begin most mornings by reading Morning Prayer. It’s a habit that goes back four and a half decades to seminary. There were three services each day in the Chapel of the Good Shepherd at General Seminary: Morning Prayer, Holy Eucharist, and Evensong. Of the three, Morning Prayer has endured.

Starting each day with Morning Prayer helps ground me. It broadens my prayers so I’m not just praying for my own very personal concerns or for the people I know and love. I end up praying for people in other countries, people for whom others have asked me to pray, situations where I recognize my own powerlessness and have no choice other than to hand them over to God.

Not all my prayers are formal and “churchy.” Sometimes they end up with my telling Jesus how angry and frustrated I feel about things. It took a long time before I could offer my rantings to God, but a wise spiritual director pointed out that the Bible featured a whole lot of people who, at various times, gave God a piece their mind. "Look at some of the psalms," he said. "They’re proof you don’t have to 'manage the news' with God."

This past Tuesday, it was a staff member’s turn to start our Tuesday meeting with prayer. She brought a book that was new to me: Rage Prayers by Elizabeth Ashman Riley, an Episcopal priest from the Diocese of Olympia, Washington. The book’s cover is appropriately the color red. It has prayers for all kinds of circumstances, and most of them don’t mince words.

Having prayed for many years, often without getting much in the way of answers, I was particularly moved by a prayer in the section of the book called “Raging with Faith.” The prayer’s title is simply, “Unanswered Prayers.” Here it is:

Holiness,
In faithfulness I have cast my prayers,
Petitions and pleas,
Offering my praise and thanksgiving,
Opening my heart and bearing my prayers
To you.

But for the prayers I have lifted to your name
In hope of something changed go unanswered.
I am left to wonder if my prayers anger you,
Or are unworthy of answering?

And I wonder what is the point of praying at all,
If I am shouting in the wind?

Whatever is on your heart, know that you can share it with God. The fact is, God already knows. We’re reminded of this every Sunday in one of the opening prayers of each service. It’s addressed to God “to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid.”

Blessings,

Stephen Applegate