In a former lifetime I taught English grammar to high school freshman. Grammar may seem irrelevant, but our choice of words and usage shapes meaning, which in turn influences our attitudes, practices, and beliefs.
We describe our parish as community in which faith is more a verb than a noun, in that how we believe is more important that what we believe. Popular colloquialisms constrict the meaning of faith to a noun: keep the faith, spread the faith, and worst of all, I lost my faith. As a noun, faith becomes quantitative, something to be gained or lost or held onto closely. Interestingly, when the disciples ask Jesus to increase their faith, his hyperbolic response reveals that it’s more about essence or quality then size. A mustard seed’s worth can move — there’s the verb!– a mountain. (Matthew 17:20). Let’s keep faith as a verb!
While prayer is a noun, we often use it as a verb. Let us pray. Pray for me. I will pray for you. I find it difficult to pray. No doubt, prayer is an activity: communal worship, reading the scriptures or spiritual works, private acts of devotion, breath work and body prayer.
When we keep prayer as a verb, however, we restrict it to an ego-driven exercise. This can keep us in a sense of control and from a letting go or surrender — the goal of all prayer and spiritual exercises.
Words, hymns, readings can lead us into prayer, but they fail when we make them the end of prayer rather than its invitation.
After plainly admitting that we do not know how to pray, Paul describes prayer as the Spirit’s activity within us (Romans 8:26-27). Only by the disciples’ request does Jesus teach them how to pray and he gives them very few words (Luke 11:1-4). He preferred to be at prayer in solitude, another place, away from the crowds and his healing ministry.
The psalmist attributes the ability to pray to all creation. The natural elements yield prayers of praise (Psalms 148). We can safely say that we naturally pray, or by nature are creatures of prayer. We just need to be aware of the prayer happening inside us and all around us. Prayer happens for us when we recognize a Presence. To recognize it is to beatprayer– a place in our hearts, a level of consciousness, a state of being.
I am not alone in this experience. I hear it from others. Suddenly we find ourselves at prayer. It happens. Without praying words. Momentarily we are in a space of being ONE with the Spirit, one with creation, one with others. This is when we are one with our true divine selves. Our praying-selves.
We often press the verb, instead resting with the noun. What if instead of trying to pray, we tried to find ourselves at prayer, or recognize prayer happening within us? That might mean different things to each of us: a walk outside, quiet time with our pet, or a hobby/activity that occupies are conscious mind to free our less conscious mind (knitting, the rosary, gardening). Pray is in our hearts. Let’s go there!