What Has Been, Will Be Again

"You brood of vipers!"

-Jesus, AND John the Baptist

It is the Tweet/Facebook share of the day, the New York Daily News cover with all the tweets from Republican presidential candidates around the edge offering "thoughts and prayers" to the victims of the latest atrocity, and in big block letters: "God is not fixing this."

Each time this happens the backlash against the "thoughts and prayers" reaction gets a little stronger and a little louder.  I'm not even going to go into the gun control/violence part of this equation today, I'm just going to talk a bit about the things that really made Jesus mad, because actually the same thing that inspired the Daily News headline and the rising sense of futility around this whole issue was the thing that drove both Jesus and his cousin John to use the phrase "Brood of vipers," which if anything is unfair to the snakes.

Look, I believe in prayer.  Specifically, I believe in the power of prayer as more than just a "centering exercise."  I believe that God responds to our prayers, I believe that in prayer we connect with our Creator, and I believe that, sometimes, prayer can bring miracles.  That said, I don't think our prayers are doing much good in this case, and sincerity and faith are not the reason.  Sure, I'm rather certain that a lot of the "thoughts and prayers" that are going up from politicians and the like are just pro-forma, "Gee I'm sorry we're not going to do anything to actually help" type prayers, I'm not even counting those.  But I do know that many people, people who really grasp the power of prayer and are praying good prayers with sincere faith and not just in a CYA sort of way, are praying fervently that this would end, and it's not ending.

That doesn't mean those prayers are worthless, it just means we haven't gotten to the part where God acts yet.  Jesus prayed really this prayer about a cup passing from him really hard one time, and God didn't answer him.  If it can happen to Jesus, it can happen to anyone.  The end of that prayer was this, "Not my will, but thy will be done."

I don't pretend to know what God's will is all the time.  I certainly don't presume to know how to fix the problems we are having.  I suspect that the answer is much bigger and more far reaching than we can realize in the heat of these moments.

This is not me suggesting that we continue to sit back and do nothing, and continue to use the illusion of prayer to sanctify our apathy.  If we're praying for God's will to be done, we need to be ready to accept that the first thing God will change is not the gun laws or the mental health system, but our hearts.  Want to see a way through this?  Invite God to change your heart, invite God to convict you in how to act on this, pay attention to the results.  Those who are praying in sympathy are only asking God to alleviate the symptoms of an illness, not to take over the cause of the illness.

There have always been people who learn to speak the language of prayer, "those who say long prayers in public," without ever actually opening themselves to the presence of God.  I'm not putting myself in the seat of judgment on those people, because, you know, glass houses.

I'm sort of a professional pray-er.  I have to say prayers a lot, often out loud, that are just sort of expected prayers: grace before meals, invocations at the start of events, those sorts of things.  I know what words to say, and I know when to keep it short, and I just sort of ask God to forgive me if I don't always manage to pray that sincerely when we sit down to lunch at Panera.

On the other hand there are those prayers that come from deep down, the ones that sometimes come with tears and powerful emotions, and no, it doesn't mean they have to be spontaneous and extemporaneous, they can be written prayers, they can use the words spoken by others, What matters is that you open yourself to the presence of the Holy Spirit.  These are the prayers that connect.  I consider it a gift that, on occasion, I get to say these out loud, in front of people, that's what keeps me going.

The fact that prayer can have such power is actually the reason why I find insincere prayer so offensive, why I sometimes resist the obligatory prayers, why I am, along with many others, getting tired of hearing about all the "thoughts and prayers," that are obviously not leading to changed hearts and lives.

I will leave you with this prayer, one of my favorites, by Howard Thurman:

Lord, Open unto me

Open unto me - light for my darkness.

Open unto me - courage for my fear.

Open unto me - hope for my despair.

Open unto me - peace for my turmoil.

Open unto me - joy for my sorrow.

Open unto me - strength for my weakness.

Open unto me - wisdom for my confusion.

Open unto me - forgiveness for my sins.

Open unto me - Love for my hates.

Open unto me - thy Self for my self.

Lord, Lord, open unto me!