on prayer (part 2)

So what can we say about prayer - intercession and suplication, in particular?

Undoubtedly, it helps to calm and focus the individual pray-er. Many religious traditions involve prayer and/or mediation, and as far as I know, there is evidence that those who participate enjoy a better quality of life, less stress, maybe even better mental health. Does that make sense? Well, it seems to me, yes: prayer makes us think about what really matters to us. It gives us space and time to think about what we hope may happen. It tends to cause us to be less superficial in our treatment of whatever we are praying about (though I find that it is easy to get stuck with trite vapid prayer). I think that this applies whether the tradition of prayer is one of quiet contemplation, or extatic exuberence.

Corporate prayer helps to strengthen the community, too. We rehearse together the things that matter to us, and so strengthen the shared vision, the shared ownership of the ideas. Some people's prayers are quite evidently more directed to those around than to the Almighty: but even the others give us a shared language, a common purpose, and a perspective it's hard to dissent from. It is very difficult after someone has just prayed for some particular outcome to say that one hopes that outcome does not come about.

And then, they say that prayer - the listening kind of prayer - entails learning what is on God's heart. I wonder to what extent our understanding comes from God, and to what extent it comes from the two things above - sorting out your own thoughts, and learning what others are thinking. And I wonder why it should be that God talks to us when we adopt that prayerful attitude: rather than, say in the hubbub of busy life, or when watching the television. But I suppose we find that God works in all sorts of ways.

Of course, our first idea of prayer is of sharing with God what is on our minds: albeit, theoretically, as a two way conversation. And asking him to do things. A prayer of request or supplication entails asking him to intervene, to make things right. And that, for the reasons I set out in part 1, is where the problems seem to come from. Prayer which changes me, rather than God, I can comprehend (though I'm not entirely sure I've explained it well).