THERE'S PRAYER AND THEN THERE'S PRAYER

      Maybe it is because Alex Karras ("Mongo just a pawn in the game of life") recently passed away, but lately when I think of the word "pray" I keep thinking of Liam Dunn praying in his role of Preacher Johnson in Blazing Saddles. With a black preacher's hat and a black preacher's coat Dunn held his Bible aloft and cried, "O LORD!" and then went on with a loud prayer appropriate for a Mel Brooks inspired bigot to intone before a momentous occasion (destruction of the town). And that is not how I usually think of prayer.

     We (that's you and me) Christians have formalized our prayer life to such a high and mighty extent that we forget how simple "The Lord's Prayer" or Psalm 121 can be when we slow down and really listen, when we really feel it, when we drop the word "intone" not only from our vocabulary but from our behavior. 

     I am not faulting formal prayer in any way. Two weeks ago I was nervous about getting a heart cath, my first. As I prayed Compline that night I really heard the words and the intent of Psalm 91, as if for the first time: 

Because you have made the LORD your refuge,
   and the Most High your habitation,

There shall no evil happen to you,
   to keep you in all your ways.

For he shall give his angels charge over you,
   to keep you in all your ways.

They shall bear you in their hands,
   lest you dash your foot against a stone.

You shall tread upon the lion and adder;
   you shall trample the lion and the serpent
                   under your feet.

and, finally, near the end of Compline, there is this simple prayer:

Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping; that awake
we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in peace.

     This last prayer is particularly comforting to someone who worries what the next day will bring. Think for a moment about being on "watch with Christ," watching together, you, him, your brother, the Son of God, who would die that nothing evil would ever happen to your soul. That is a prayer to pray in a low voice, barely a whisper or a sigh (1 Kings 19:12.)

     Often when I pray I am quiet and know that I am with God, just as Psalm 46 says. It is refreshing just to sit quietly with God. We don't really talk much at these quiet times. I know he loves and cares for me and he knows everything in my heart. I can't hide who I am when I am with him. Nor do I want to. We are at peace. There is no great wind, no breaking mountains, no fire, no intoning.

Oh, my heart? Very healthy.