Say your prayers..

Do I believe in prayer? Yes, I do. I realize that some of you who read this blog may not. That’s okay. Of course. I don’t believe we all have to believe in the same things. But yes, I do believe in prayer. If you ask me to pray for you, I will.

And if ever there was a time when I find some solace in saying my prayers, it is these days when the world seems upside down and topsy turvy and it seems that cruelty is winning.

I can remember as a very young child kneeling beside my bed at night, my mother sitting on the bed beside me and she would say a line and I would repeat it…

Now I lay me down to sleep…….

At the end I would name people in my family and sometimes friends, sometimes pets…

I pray for Mommy and Daddy, Mama and Papa, for our dog Sukoshi…and others. Even my brother and sister sometimes!

If you know that bedtime prayer I will agree with you that it seems a bit strange for children to pray about dying before they wake, but it is a bedtime prayer that has been prayed for centuries, as early as the 17th century from what I discovered. I imagine there was a far greater chance that a child might die in their sleep in those days.

There are a number of variations of this bedtime prayer but this is the one I prayed:

Now I lay me down to sleep,

I pray the Lord my Soul to keep

If I should die before I 'wake,

I pray the Lord my Soul to take.

You may find it very strange (even I find it strange at times) but there are some nights when I say this prayer before falling asleep because I can still find a bit of comfort in those words. Perhaps it is because the words evoke a time, my childhood, when I felt safe and protected no matter what might happen. Perhaps it is recognition that at my age it may be more likely I might not wake. Perhaps it is needing reassurance that no matter how crazy things may seem these days, there is a force more powerful than the human ones who are lusting for power and control at the moment.

I have Christian friends that pray the Lord’s Prayer when they first wake in the morning and right before they go to sleep at night. Every religious tradition has its own traditions of prayer.

I am part of a centering prayer group—silent meditation—that meets weekly. Once the singing bowl chimes, we don’t chat or share stories but we simply sit in silence, breathing in, breathing out. It is one of the most cherished hours of my week.

It was interesting in this week’s episode of the television show The Pitt, when Dr. Robby collapses in grief and exhaustion after attending the wounded from a mass shooting, he prays the Shema. Shema is the Hebrew word for “hear” and it begins the most important prayer in Judaism, found in Deuteronomy 6:4:

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

Jesus uses this prayer when he is asked what is the greatest commandment of all (in the gospel of Mark):

The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.

If we lived by the words of this prayer—to love God and to love our neighbor—we would create a different world. I realize that people who are not at all religious, who may even profess to be atheists, often do a better job of loving their neighbors than those who choose to brazenly sport their badges of religion. What we profess to believe does not seem as important as how we live out our beliefs.

So prayer can be a comfort, it can be a means of calming our souls, it can be a means of girding how we live in the world and how we live with one another.

I often pray for those I love; it is a much more difficult task for me to pray for those I do not love. It is hard to see everyone as our neighbor even when we believe that is what is asked of us.

Here is a prayer, from the New Zealand Book of Prayer, that I sometimes pray at night.

Lord,

it is night.

The night is for stillness.

Let us be still in the presence of God.

It is night after a long day.

What has been done has been done;

what has not been done has not been done;

let it be.

The night is dark.

Let our fears of the darkness of the world and of our own lives

rest in you.

The night is quiet.

Let the quietness of your peace enfold us,

all dear to us,

and all who have no peace.

The night heralds the dawn.

Let us look expectantly to a new day,

new joys,

new possibilities.

In your name we pray.

Amen.

I welcome your thoughts on prayer.