Meditation on Praying

Sometimes I find that I cannot pray.  I find that what I say sounds like empty words, recited because they are expected, but not heard; planned but not moving.  Like sound in a carpeted room.

I sometimes feel I can no more speak for a congregation than the next person.  Or, I find myself wondering if the next person could speak better than I.  Sometimes I think that my prayers sound routine, since I only bring the same things to God week after week, which seem to stem from the collective attitude of the congregations that the prayer requests last week didn't get forwarded properly, or that the answers we sought didn't stick.  So we need to beg again.  Forgive this; help that; be there; give us peace.

Yet if my prayers suffer from a lack of depth, it is likely because I sometimes do not wish to swim any deeper.  That has to do with the fact that in the shallows, I always know I can touch with the tips of my toes.  In the depths, though, I have to trust in something more than my own power.  And that means offering up control.

And if my faith is shallow, it may come because I am afraid to venture too far.  Perhaps there are times I do not believe God is with me, let alone the congregation.  Perhaps we all feel that God calls us on a path that is less than comfortable.  So we all work to say where we are and we wonder why things don't change.

So for that, I ask God's forgiveness.  In asking God to move me, I also demonstrate my lack of trust that God will be there when I move towards God.  Because, paradoxically, I believe God is where we are yet calls us onward.  I shiver often at the prospect of change, but in that shivering, I would strive to find faith.

So perhaps my prayer is that God take my empty words and fill them; that God stoke my waning fire, that I might give light and warmth; that my tired eyes might be renewed.  That I might be who I am and work to become who I can be.