A Story of Prayer

I'm not very good at prayer. I don't have any sort of regular prayer schedule, the Prayers of the People is my least favorite part of Sunday worship, and when I'm asked to pray for someone I do it right then and there because otherwise it won't happen. Which is why I'm going to tell a story about prayer that seemed to work for me.

I spent the last several days of last week doing volunteer botany fieldwork with people from my lab and other volunteers. I'd been really looking forward to getting out in the field, and in this particular case, I was excited that I was no longer a completely new student and didn't feel as much need to prove myself, and thought that maybe I could work hard and all but not feel overwhelmed. The law of the universe seems to be that once you're at all competent with what you've been doing, it's time to do something new. So this time I was assigned to be a group leader. To be fair, I had volunteered to do this if needed, though at the time I expected to be in more familiar plant community types. So I did that for two days and muddled through it and was looking forward to the fact that the last day I didn't think I'd be needed to lead, and besides I'd carpooled with a much more experienced friend and we needed to drive back together after the day's work, so we'd have to be in the same place, so he'd be leading, right? Wrong. Well, he was leading, but so was I – we were taking two teams and we'd each be leading one. And to top it off, we were working in one of the tougher vegetation types.

I was not happy. I wasn't angry, and I knew I had volunteered for this, but I was so disappointed at the prospect of spending another day feeling out of my depth. (Again, to be fair, I also really enjoyed most of my time as a leader – in part because as much of it was spent doing the fieldwork as actually leading). So, seeing no other options, I turned to God. I had to go back to my room to pick up a couple things anyway, so I spent a minute or so sitting on the floor turning my attention to God and asking for help. It was mostly wordless, and I think a lot of it was just that I was looking for comfort and a release from my insecurities and worries about doing a bad job, about not being able to identify enough plants, about making decisions I didn't know how to make. Basically to have that taken out of the forefront of my mind and to be able to focus on doing the best job I could and to trust God that it would be enough.

And I got that. My own particular sense of the presence of God, which I've experienced before and which I have trouble describing. A sense of lightness, a sense of calm and joy and peace. The scientist in me points out that this undoubtedly has a physiological component and that there's no way I can prove that what I'm sensing is God. On the other hand, I'm a physical being – everything I experience has a physiological component because that's the only way I understand the world – seeing has a physiological component too, but that doesn't mean the objects I see aren't real. And what makes the most sense to me is that this feeling is somehow connected to God, so that's my working hypothesis.

So at that point I was ready to go, still feeling somewhat nervous but ready to give it a shot. I made up my mind to sort of “check in” with God every few hours – sort of thinking that there might be a reason why all those monks prayed the hours. And I found it very helpful. It didn't take long, just a few seconds every few hours to try to align myself with God – my mental imagery involved using John Polkinghorne's metaphor of a laser – if God didn't want a geek, He should have made someone else. And it was a really great day, despite thunderstorms and briars and tiredness. It was also a day of great people, challenging but possible work, beautiful plants and animals, and an enormous sense of satisfaction when the work was done.

Now it's disclaimer time. I absolutely believe that God was present and that His presence helped me through the day and filled it with joy and meaning. I do not for one minute believe that prayer will in all cases make everything nice and fluffy. I was dealing with a situation where the problem was mostly with myself and my own attitudes and fears. Real pain and grief do exist, and though I believe God can help us endure them, I don't think prayer magically gets rid of things like the pain of losing a loved one. Nor am I certain I would want it to – I seem to feel that in some way appropriate grief is a way of honoring those we love when they're gone. But that's a topic for another time, and of course different people feel things differently.

Meanwhile, I am trying to keep up with the regular checking in with God, using the monastery idea of every third hour (but 6 gets moved to 6:30 because that's when I wake up). Some days I'm halfway decent at being attentive, some days I barely manage a “Hi, God” because I'm just clamoring to get on with what I'm doing. And of course this is all based on a sample size of about four days.

The thing that's somewhat tricky for me to keep in mind but also very important is the idea that God truly wants to be in communion with us, does not get tired of us and want to be left alone, does not think that the things we pray about are too silly and minor for Him to get involved with, and does not want to punish us for our failings as much as heal us of them. And that God is capable of doing “more than we can ask or imagine” and that if our lives are indeed caught up in God anyway, it's not only okay but makes sense to rely on Him.