Desaray’s early morning post today – and her slow, scary, exciting and mystifying approach to the Friends community – set me to thinking about prayer. Election day – filled as it is with conflict, with the thirst for power and prestige, with self-delusion and self-congratulation – empty as it is of quiet, reflection, honesty and generosity – is a really good day for reflection.
So, please be patient as I type for a while about these things: Prayer and weddings, prayer in weddings, prayer after weddings and prayer that puts weddings in a new light and new perspective.
Weddings – no matter how secular – are still built on the foundation of archaic prayer services. Yet, prayer is not one of the words that we hear a lot in planning weddings. It’s an elephant in the room. Related words like blessing and of course vow are commonplace – they stand for prayer without making a big deal about it.
The Knot has just five references to “prayer”: three of these are under the rubric of “requirements” for Catholic, Protestant and Jewish ceremonies; one is a Celine Dion song; and the last prayer is one that was answered with a good photographer.
The Knot is no one’s standard of serious intellectual or spiritual involvement, but I think it’s fair to say it dimly reflects the zeitgeist.
It’s not surprising that prayer should be a bit of a taboo in the matrimonial-industrial complex. For one thing, planning a wedding is so often about “getting it just right,” which is impossible with prayer – when prayer is “just right,” that usually means it’s scripted, stilted or hollow. Prayer’s outcomes are unpredictable. They are neither right nor wrong. They often look like failure but feel like success. A wedding ceremony as ambivalent as this is unlikely to “impress” anybody.
Another ideal of wedding planning is making it “personal,” or customized. It would be hard to get prayer right according to this standard. For many people, the most authentic and meaningful prayers are the involuntary ones that flow out of hope, despair, grief, fury, ecstasy – in short, vulnerability. These prayers would be inappropriate (or, at least, very uncomfortable) for a wedding, no matter how intimate and personal it might be. Consequently, the "personal" prayers that couples tend to choose are treacly.
For those of us who are religious but getting married outside a church, asking people to participate in religious prayer is delicate. Inside a church, with a clerical celebrant, a marrying couple has some cover. “These prayers are not really our words,” they could say. Or, more affirmatively, “These prayers are a lovely, old-fashioned tradition.” “These prayers don’t quite reflect our beliefs, but they are part of the bargain for having our beautiful wedding in this beautiful space – and maybe they’re not so bad, since we got to revise them a little bit.”
I don’t think we got prayer right at our wedding. We were close, but not quite there. Our readers and co-celebrants weren’t entirely comfortable with the language, although they were good sports. They saw it (generously) as “our day,” and they gamely did their part to deliver what we requested. Still, I wish we had collaborated with them more. Talked more. Prayed together. Invited them more deeply into our personal prayer lives so they could get the counterintuitive connections between our “personal” spirituality, and the public signs and language of the ceremony.
Sometimes – more than sometimes – just going through the motions of prayer is good - as good as getting to that deep, dream-like state of prayer, the state that prayer strives for, in which one is in communication with hidden parts of one’s self, and with hidden parts of the world, and they are forgiving one another. Practicing prayer not only prepares us for those extraordinary moments, but it also has good, objective outcomes of its own. It is energetic.
In retrospect, looking back at the last year, I wish that I had spent at least as much time in the practice of prayer as I did in the practice of foxtrot. At the same time, I am not regretful. Our wedding, at sunset, on the cusp of autumn, opened up new channels for my prayer life, and reopened some that I had been neglecting. With a new, renewed family, the time and space for having and creating memories, I am refreshed and eager to get down to the good work of prayer.
I have some tools that I use for prayer. Maybe it is indulgent or boastful to write about them in this forum. Maybe it is helpful.
My criteria for choosing these over the course of my life has been that prayer tools should be easy to do but challenging to my feelings and beliefs, and they should have evidence of tradition and inspiration.
The “Suscipe” prayer from the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola is one of these. It is easy to find a good/correct rendering online. But, I learned it a bit differently from my spiritual director in college, and I like my shorter, simpler version:Take, Lord, and receive all that I am and have. You have given it all to me, and I give it all back to you. Just give me your love and your grace, and that is enough.
Another prayer I learned in college is one that I didn’t think I could use or accept, because it seems so . . . prosecutorial. This is the Orthodox Rosary (Chotki) Mantra, known as the “Jesus Prayer.”Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
The last prayer tool that I want to share – because I’ve gotten very long-winded here – is the Avalokiteshvara Mantra, which you surely know already: Om Mani Padme Hum.
I sometimes just repeat it or look at it, like a pure mantra. Sometimes I alternate the mantra with a prayer to eliminate both anxieties and seductions, like this:Om Mani Padme Hum.
To be without worry.
To be without peace of mind.
Om Mani Padme Hum.
To be without screwing up.
To be without getting it right.
And so on. This prayer is like a bloodhound for detecting secret fears. Other times it exposes my "goods" as addictions.
So – what are your tools or prayer, reflection and communicating with hidden parts of yourself?
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Hope, Desire, Secrets and Meaning
Monday, October 6, 2008
What Is Lasting
So, our wedding will take place in five days, and today is also the feast of Saint Bruno, whose name only sounds the same as my future in-laws' surname. There is no family connection to the saint, but Bruno families around the world probably consider him to be a patron. He is a good man for the job.
Saint Bruno was born in 1030 in Cologne, and he had a fast rise from promising student to professor to presumptive new bishop of Reims. Bruno lived in tumultuous times. His own diocese was rattled by an abusive prelate and the battle to remove him. In Rome, Emperor Henry IV was resisting the church-wide reform efforts of Pope Gregory VII, going so far as to establish an antipapacy in Ravenna.
In the midst of all this turmoil, Bruno's esteem rose among many parties. The clergy of Reims sought his leadership, and Gregory sought his counsel. Bruno, though, longed for a simple life, attached only to prayer and work, eschewing power and influence. During his years in Gregory's closest confidence, Bruno took care to keep himself always in the background. His mission was to free the church from corruption and politics, not to defeat Henry.
Anyhow, the thing I most want to tell you about him is that Bruno, during his journeys toward and away from centers of power and conflict established two monasteries. The first was at a remote spot in the Alps known as Chartreuse, from which the Carthusian Order grew and gets its name. You may also know the liquor called Chartreuse, which the monks distilled and sold to support the maintenance of their houses, and which today is still sold in support of various charities.
The Carthusians live lives of great simplicity and quiet. They rarely speak except to pray. Each act - including prayer - is undertaken at the slowest practical pace. Their charism is captured by their motto: "Stat crux, dum volvitur orbis," which means, "The cross stands while the world is changing."
An acclaimed film was made about the monastery of Grande Chartreuse. The images literally defy words, which is surely the point:
Can you imagine what Saint Bruno would have thought about our modern wedding rituals? What today's Carthusians think of us - if they even know what we're up to? These ceremonies - ostensibly dedicated to the making permanent of something that is imperiled by human whims - have become binges of frippery. Michael and I are as guilty of it as anyone else - each argument we have had about paper, flowers and wine is venal. What will last after Saturday? Where shall we turn our focus?
We have five days left until our wedding. This week, we are going to approach life with our eyes turned toward what is permanent. Whatever is picayune and vain and worrisome is forbidden. Any thought that provokes me to anger is banished.
Each time the Bruno name is said or seen on Saturday, I will consider it a tiny prayer for the aid of Saint Bruno in keeping calm and quiet, and caring most about what is lasting.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Good Enough for Now, I Guess
I received a sweet, unexpected email from my sister yesterday saying, simply, "Congratulations!" on the occasion of the California Supreme Court's decision to . . . erm . . . stop the politicians from robbing a whole class of human beings of their rights.
I just wrote and then deleted a long and pessimistic post about the state of the world and the slow progress of justice. It is true, I think, that this week's "victory" is too small, too temporary, and is overshadowed by the seemingly inexhaustible mass of fear and ignorance. So I'm trying again for something more optimistic.
As I wrote of my anger today, I also began to feel compassion for those who sense their power - their long history of privilege and authority - being stripped away. It is this anxiety and loss in the face of radical changes in the world that leads them to fight against marriage equality, among other objectively good changes. When I hear them say, "think of the children," or "threat to the family," or "it's a slippery slope," I know that those are merely effigies of hurt feelings.
At the risk of sounding condescending, I would pray for them, that they should every day reflect on the fact that all their power, all their privilege, that all authority and all dominion come from God. Power is not a right, but a costly gift, and one that we all - who possess it - are called upon to steward wisely as we strive to live more fully in God's image. Our power gives us the capacity to choose the right, to love one another, and to live well.
I also pray that my own patience and compassion should increase. I know that I share in the sinful tendency to translate my subjective experiences into a putatively objective reality. I should remember that my moral judgments primarily stem from my own anxiety, and that by better understanding my fears as well as my desires, I will see the world and people more clearly.
I am happy that so many California couples, after years of faithful love, now possess the right to seal their unions under the law and in the witness of the community. I am happy that these justices understand that democracy - and, indeed, civilization - depend upon the rule of law and not majority rule. But I am unhappy that this is so extraordinary an occurrence. We are living in the 21st century, and yet our progress is continually offset by fear and ignorance.
Perhaps the resolution to this ambivalence is to shift one's focus from the general to the particular. If one sets one's sights on the vast and perpetual battle between human dignity and human darkness, one is inevitably frustrated. The score is impossible to calculate at that scale. But in reflecting on the love one feels and the love one witnesses, gosh, in this there is so much comfort.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Break Bread/Cut Rug
Both of us grew up in the apparatus of Catholic education--some combination of Catholic schools and CCD--during a time when the so-called Baltimore Catechism was no longer taught and had not yet been replaced. Our religious education was somewhat unbounded and had a very different flavor from that which our parents received, which was quite classical and involved the memorization of many definitions and rules. But we were, like our parents, made to memorize something specific that stays with me:
"A sacrament is an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace."
These days, it's far more common to hear sacraments described as milemarkers, ceremonies that highlight and bless certain passages in life. This is a grace, for sure. But in planning our wedding, we have hoped to retain some of the old-fashioned sense of "giving grace." It is not merely describing an event, but it is bringing about a fundamental change. It might be doing something, dare I say it, supernatural.
We also hope to retain the role of Christ. There is no shortage of people who think it odd that we remain committed and practicing Catholics. There are many who assume we are the "wink-and-a-nudge" kind of Christians--that we are in it for the showbiz. Speaking for myself, if not for Michael, it's not the "outward sign" part that keeps me practicing the sacraments. It's the Christ, and the grace.
This sacramental sense should be felt in every part of our wedding day. From the ceremony to the dinner to the dance party. There's a reason why this wedding-day structure is the norm: because it fits the way we humans experience encounters with grace. We pray, we share, we celebrate. We are not going to water it down by replacing the scriptures with love poems, or substituting speeches for prayers. We have selected readings that are so full of revelation that they blow my mind every time I read them. We have been scouring the missal and Book of Common Prayer for the right words and the right order of parts. And when the disco music starts, we may turn into a different sense of ceremony, but it ought still to be elevating of the soul!
