Prayer for the unbeliever

I don’t believe in a God who sits up in heaven, or anywhere else. I don’t believe in a God who answers prayers. I don’t believe in a God who needs to be praised, placated, or appealed to. At this point in my life, I also don’t see God as a him, a her or even an it. If divinity does exist, then there’s no solidity to it, no there there, no entity dwelling within, as least as far as I can tell. And yet I pray.

Imagine my surprise.

I pray because I feel better when I do. My mind is clearer. My intentions more certain. I even launched a pray-a-thon in August and decided to pray daily in the hope that such a practice would help me find goodness. I’ve kept my word. I’m still praying. But I’ve continued to struggle because I don’t really understand prayer. What is prayer if not the act of talking to a God? How can I talk to God if I don’t believe in God?

Enter Maine Chaplain Kate Braestrup and her marvelous new book Beginner’s Grace: Bringing Prayer to Life. I’ve just started reading it, and already I’m beginning to understand why the heck I’ve been doing what I’m doing.

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The continuing saga of meditation and prayer

I’m one month into my meditate pray-a-thon, and I have to admit that this is both easier and far harder than I expected. I thought I’d stumble over my schedule and be unable to apply butt to seat to keep my daily appointment with myself. That has turned out to be the easy part. I made a public commitment, and except for weekends when my schedule gets scrambled, I’m sitting in my meditation chair at the appointed time five days a week.

What’s tough is what I do when I’m in that seat, particularly when it comes to meditation, particularly when it comes to meandering through my mind, watching the old movie scenes that pop up in front of my eyes, listening to dialogue from last night’s TV show, replaying yesterday’s conversation, obsessing over today’s work and on and on ad nauseum.

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The Meditate & pray-a-thon ctd.

I did it. My goal was to meditate and pray every day for seven days, and I succeeded. Wahoo for me! This turned out to be far easier than I had expected because once I made the commitment, I discovered that I was hungry for spiritual practice. What had previously seemed impossible to wedge into my daily schedule suddenly seemed easy.

So, I finished my week. Now what? I find that I want to do more, but what I have in mind is far, far scarier than the tiny commitment I made before. Of course, the question remains as to why I — a raging secularist — am driven to meditate, and even worse, to pray.

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Update on the Meditate & Pray-a-thon

I’ve kept my word. Every day this week I’ve added meditation and prayer to my morning routine. The results have been interesting. I start by meditating for 15 to 20 minutes and then I pray, and then I, ah, cry. The crying part has been a shock. I didn’t plan on tears or seek them. Read More.

Practicing goodness ctd.

I appreciate the suggestions folks posted about how I might practice goodness for the rest of this quest. Yesterday, however, while sitting in a car with the air conditioning running and deep in an unexpected conversation, I took the leap and committed to an experiment. My friend and I pledged to engage in daily practices designed to help us reach our spiritual goals. Because it seemed overwhelming, we committed to this experiment for a single week. (I know that’s a ridiculously short time, but such a brief commitment made this task possible for both of us.)

Her goal is to find the stillness she needs right now. My goal is to become/be/act good, or at the very least, to understand goodness. She pledged to write in her journal every day to become more mindful. I pledged (This is scary to admit publicly) — I pledged to mediate and pray every day. Oh wow. I feel like I just ran out on stage and pulled my pants down in front of 1,000 people. Let me explain. Read More.