PRAYER
When I was at St Paul's Episcopal, Fr. David spoke of there being different kinds of prayer. From him I learned there was something called a prayer of adoration, and wordless, silent prayer.
A few years before that, my chaplain at the Union Recue mission in Los Angeles, Pat Davis, was teaching our Bible class, and he remarked that, "Words are a very flawed and inadequate means of communication. Still, they're the best thing we've got."
I know what he means. Without words, you can't argue a case in court. On the other hand, words often involve confusion and misunderstanding.
In one of those same classes, once, Pat taught us Romans 8:26-27, and asked us what it meant, these groans, or, in a different translation, this sighing.
----------------------
Edited by Porta.
This material was prepared for Religion Online by Ted & Winnie Brock.
The New Being by Paul Tillich
The New Being was published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1955.
Chapter 18: The Paradox of Prayer
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
ROMANS 8:26-27.
This passage of Romans about the Spirit interceding for us "with sighs too deep for words" belongs to the most mysterious of Paul’s sayings. It expresses the experience of a man who knew how to pray and who, because he knew how to pray, said that he did not know how to pray.
Paul certainly knew the "Our Father" when he wrote that we do not know how to pray. It does not prove that we know how to pray when we make a liturgical law out of the example of praying which Jesus gave to his disciples.
Very often the spontaneous prayer is an ordinary conversation with somebody who is called "God," but who is actually another man to whom we tell things, often at great length, to whom we give thanks and of whom we ask favors. This certainly does not prove that we know how to pray.
The liturgical Churches which use classical formulas should ask themselves whether they do not prevent the people of our time from praying as they honestly can.
And the non-liturgical Churches who give the freedom to make up prayers at any moment, should ask themselves whether they do not profane prayer and deprive it of its mystery.
Paul gives a mysterious solution to the question of the right prayer: It is God Himself who prayers through us, when we pray to Him. God Himself in us: that is what Spirit means. Spirit is another word for "God present," with shaking, inspiring, transforming power. Something in us, which is not we ourselves, intercedes before God for us.
We cannot bridge the gap between God and ourselves even through the most intensive and frequent prayers; the gap between God and ourselves can be bridged only by God.
And so Paul gives us the surprising picture of God interceding for us before Himself. He "searches the hearts of men." Who else can bring our whole being before God except God Himself, who alone knows the deep things in our soul?
This may help us also to understand the most mysterious part of Paul’s description of prayer, namely, that the Spirit "intercedes with sighs too deep for words." Just because every prayer is humanly impossible, just because it brings deeper levels of our being before God than the level of consciousness, something happens in it that cannot be expressed in words.
Words, created by and used in our conscious life, are not the essence of prayer. The essence of prayer is the act of God who is working in us and raises our whole being to Himself. The way in which this happens is called by Paul "sighing." Sighing is an expression of the weakness of our creaturely existence. Only in terms of wordless sighs can we approach God, and even these sighs are His work in us.
Which kind of prayer is most adequate to our relation to God? The prayer in which we thank or the prayer in which we beg, the prayer of intercession or of confession or of praise? Paul does not make these distinctions. They are dependent on words; but the sighing of the Spirit in us is too deep for words and for the distinction of kinds of prayer. The Spiritual prayer is elevation to God in the power of God and it includes all forms of prayer.
To those who feel that they cannot find the words of prayer and remain silent towards God. This may be lack of Spirit. But silence may be silent prayer, namely, the sighs which are too deep for words. Then He who searches the hearts of men, knows and hears.
---------------
Edited by Porta.
From annunciationtrust.org.uk
Quakers believe that the Light within is not an abstract phrase but an experience, that the Light is present and everyone can have a living experience of God within. The Light is not divided, but the same Light is in all and is a force for unity and we can therefore test our leadings in community.
It is in silence that we come closest to God. The silent meeting is not an end in itself, but the silence leads us into stillness and the stillness leads to an awareness of the presence of God.
------------------------
When I was fresh in my new-found faith, I consulted Chaplain Pat about prayer.
I had, at this point, no gut feeling of God's existence. Raised godless, beief in God was emotionally and viscerally strange to me. I chose to believe, but I did not "feel" that God existed, the way that you "feel" you will fall, if you jump off the roof. I chose to "believe" God exists, but this choice was was undertaken by me barren of any visceral confirmation. It was as if I were choosing to believe that if I were to jump off the roof, I would *not* fall: i.e., it went against my gut to believe in God. But I realized that my gut was not the boss of me, and I could choose to believe whatever I decided to believe, irrespective of whether it jibed with my "feelings" or not.
Pat said of prayer that since it was new to me, I should start out with five minutes a day, and work up to twenty. I got ambitious, and went for fifteen minutes, but I hadn't any ideas what to pray, and I went for a "meditative" prayer as I lay on my back in my bunk one afternoon, simply repeating the word, "God," over and over, with my eyes closed. Then I stopped with any words at all, and I was just calling to God wordlessly.
That was when I experienced the presence of God, a strange warmth washed through me, as I was enfolded in the arms of One so big (and I so small), One whose arms held me to his breast, cherished and protected me with strength and love to which I happily surrendered, my feminine to the Ultimate masculine. The only time I ever felt girlish.
It was a wordless experience. Prayer.
------------------
I was on the phone with Jim Ring one day some years ago, and he surprised me with, "Let's pray." I never prayed with someone over the phone before that, but I am always up for prayer, so we did. I don't worry, as Tillich seems to, about profaning prayer by praying with words in petition, thanks, etc., at the drop of a hat. After all, if God doesn't like it, He can always intercede with a groan.
A few years before that, my chaplain at the Union Recue mission in Los Angeles, Pat Davis, was teaching our Bible class, and he remarked that, "Words are a very flawed and inadequate means of communication. Still, they're the best thing we've got."
I know what he means. Without words, you can't argue a case in court. On the other hand, words often involve confusion and misunderstanding.
In one of those same classes, once, Pat taught us Romans 8:26-27, and asked us what it meant, these groans, or, in a different translation, this sighing.
----------------------
Edited by Porta.
This material was prepared for Religion Online by Ted & Winnie Brock.
The New Being by Paul Tillich
The New Being was published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1955.
Chapter 18: The Paradox of Prayer
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
ROMANS 8:26-27.
This passage of Romans about the Spirit interceding for us "with sighs too deep for words" belongs to the most mysterious of Paul’s sayings. It expresses the experience of a man who knew how to pray and who, because he knew how to pray, said that he did not know how to pray.
Paul certainly knew the "Our Father" when he wrote that we do not know how to pray. It does not prove that we know how to pray when we make a liturgical law out of the example of praying which Jesus gave to his disciples.
Very often the spontaneous prayer is an ordinary conversation with somebody who is called "God," but who is actually another man to whom we tell things, often at great length, to whom we give thanks and of whom we ask favors. This certainly does not prove that we know how to pray.
The liturgical Churches which use classical formulas should ask themselves whether they do not prevent the people of our time from praying as they honestly can.
And the non-liturgical Churches who give the freedom to make up prayers at any moment, should ask themselves whether they do not profane prayer and deprive it of its mystery.
Paul gives a mysterious solution to the question of the right prayer: It is God Himself who prayers through us, when we pray to Him. God Himself in us: that is what Spirit means. Spirit is another word for "God present," with shaking, inspiring, transforming power. Something in us, which is not we ourselves, intercedes before God for us.
We cannot bridge the gap between God and ourselves even through the most intensive and frequent prayers; the gap between God and ourselves can be bridged only by God.
And so Paul gives us the surprising picture of God interceding for us before Himself. He "searches the hearts of men." Who else can bring our whole being before God except God Himself, who alone knows the deep things in our soul?
This may help us also to understand the most mysterious part of Paul’s description of prayer, namely, that the Spirit "intercedes with sighs too deep for words." Just because every prayer is humanly impossible, just because it brings deeper levels of our being before God than the level of consciousness, something happens in it that cannot be expressed in words.
Words, created by and used in our conscious life, are not the essence of prayer. The essence of prayer is the act of God who is working in us and raises our whole being to Himself. The way in which this happens is called by Paul "sighing." Sighing is an expression of the weakness of our creaturely existence. Only in terms of wordless sighs can we approach God, and even these sighs are His work in us.
Which kind of prayer is most adequate to our relation to God? The prayer in which we thank or the prayer in which we beg, the prayer of intercession or of confession or of praise? Paul does not make these distinctions. They are dependent on words; but the sighing of the Spirit in us is too deep for words and for the distinction of kinds of prayer. The Spiritual prayer is elevation to God in the power of God and it includes all forms of prayer.
To those who feel that they cannot find the words of prayer and remain silent towards God. This may be lack of Spirit. But silence may be silent prayer, namely, the sighs which are too deep for words. Then He who searches the hearts of men, knows and hears.
---------------
Edited by Porta.
From annunciationtrust.org.uk
Quakers believe that the Light within is not an abstract phrase but an experience, that the Light is present and everyone can have a living experience of God within. The Light is not divided, but the same Light is in all and is a force for unity and we can therefore test our leadings in community.
It is in silence that we come closest to God. The silent meeting is not an end in itself, but the silence leads us into stillness and the stillness leads to an awareness of the presence of God.
------------------------
When I was fresh in my new-found faith, I consulted Chaplain Pat about prayer.
I had, at this point, no gut feeling of God's existence. Raised godless, beief in God was emotionally and viscerally strange to me. I chose to believe, but I did not "feel" that God existed, the way that you "feel" you will fall, if you jump off the roof. I chose to "believe" God exists, but this choice was was undertaken by me barren of any visceral confirmation. It was as if I were choosing to believe that if I were to jump off the roof, I would *not* fall: i.e., it went against my gut to believe in God. But I realized that my gut was not the boss of me, and I could choose to believe whatever I decided to believe, irrespective of whether it jibed with my "feelings" or not.
Pat said of prayer that since it was new to me, I should start out with five minutes a day, and work up to twenty. I got ambitious, and went for fifteen minutes, but I hadn't any ideas what to pray, and I went for a "meditative" prayer as I lay on my back in my bunk one afternoon, simply repeating the word, "God," over and over, with my eyes closed. Then I stopped with any words at all, and I was just calling to God wordlessly.
That was when I experienced the presence of God, a strange warmth washed through me, as I was enfolded in the arms of One so big (and I so small), One whose arms held me to his breast, cherished and protected me with strength and love to which I happily surrendered, my feminine to the Ultimate masculine. The only time I ever felt girlish.
It was a wordless experience. Prayer.
------------------
I was on the phone with Jim Ring one day some years ago, and he surprised me with, "Let's pray." I never prayed with someone over the phone before that, but I am always up for prayer, so we did. I don't worry, as Tillich seems to, about profaning prayer by praying with words in petition, thanks, etc., at the drop of a hat. After all, if God doesn't like it, He can always intercede with a groan.