Prayer as Gift
Thursday, December 28th, 2006This afternoon I was trying to let go of the thoughts in my monkey brain in order to center and be present to the Presence. For a few moments I was getting frustrated (some other thoughts that successfully counter silence), then I remembered reading someone write that prayer is a gift.
That helped me to relax and release the frustration at least (the monkey thoughts were still racing around trying to grab my attention).
The idea of prayer as gift took on two dimensions in my reflection later (counter-productive to reflect on a thought about releasing thoughts in the midst of the time to release thoughts in silence). One dimension is the idea that prayer is a gift of God to us. It is not something that we can manufacture. While there are some techniques that one can learn, proper techniques do not make prayer. If a big part of prayer is the living connection with the presence of God then we cannot command God, we can only place ourselves in a place of openness and willingness and wait for God to choose the means of that presence. Sometimes that gift is the quieting of the monkey brain, sometimes that gift is the quiet in the midst of the squealing attention seekers in our heads and hearts. And then there are the times when the awareness of the gift must wait, but our waiting is the gift.
The other dimension is that our prayer is a gift to God. I give up on the idea of prayer as duty. I am less happy with the teachers of vocational prayer (it is our work). If prayer is about relationship, then we come to God not out of sense of having to, but because we love to, we want to, we desire to. If our coming to God is gift then it becomes more precious to us and to God.
And who wouldn’t rather give/receive a gift regularly to someone you love than to just show up and do your job?
I would.
And I think God would also.
