Volume 4, Issue 4, February 1996

PATHWAYS OF PRAYER

Prayer is the heart of religion, not only among Christians, but seems to be natural to people of all races, ages and levels of civilization. The normal person in possession of their rationality, intelligence, insight and emotional maturity knows that they cannot solve life's problems by wishful thinking. We become able to discover transcendent power within that enables us to fulfill our aims and goals. Those who are most devoted to prayer cultivate the inner life like craftpersons or artists realizing the exercise improves their handling of reality.

Reality deals with the phenomenal rather than the idealistic. Prayer is an individual and very personal relationship between each of us and the God of our own understanding. Trouble and perplexity drive us to seek realism in the situation and insight into solution for our anxiety.

The mystics of various religions - Hindu, Buddhist, Hebrew, Christian, Islam and others - have developed exercises and disciplines to realize devotional experiences. The mystical experience of God has certain characteristics that are common to all faiths. As Karen Armstrong ("A History of God", Ballantine Books, page 219) describes it, "It is a subjective experience that involves an inner journey, not a perception of an objective fact outside the self; it is undertaken through the image-making part of the mind - often called the imagination -rather than through the more cerebral, logical faculty.

Prophets are also persons of prayer. They are as fully devoted to the religious cause as the mystics, but they follow another discipline. The mystic is regulated by the aim of self-control, while the prophet is directed by the aim of social action. The prophet is devoted to social welfare and identifies with the common life of people. This person broods with God over the wrongs of the time and speaks out the message of reform and renewal. The urgency of social needs possesses the prophet until he or she can bear it no longer and feel compelled to take courageous action with God to serve others.

The prophet is disciplined by a keen sense of need and of calling to respond and help bring about reform.

The priests are also persons of prayer. They take up prayer as a religious vocation. But their discipline is not the self-control of the mystic or the social action of the prophet. Priestly discipline is ritual. The life of prayer is regulated in the place of worship by tradition and authority. They develop liturgies, breviaries, and common prayer.

Each of these disciplines has its psychological value. Priestly prayer is rich in traditional symbols, aware of historical continuities, precise in well-ordered expression, effective in literary and dramatic power, solemn in dignity, and impressive in social resonance.

However, priestly prayer can result in sterile, hollow formality. The priest is the religious conservative, the opponent of change, the believer that the divine is best known through tradition and the institution they represent. Ritual and liturgy are the priestly tools, and distrust for enthusiasm and innovation characterizes these people.

The prophet is the religious liberal. They have a sense of mission as the mouthpiece of God. The prophet is of this world and enters the arena of social and political conflict to speak for the realm of God. The prophet's praying appears to lead them to aggressive social action and reform.

The religious intellectual is another representative of the praying person. This is a person of thought, a scholar, one who becomes aware of spiritual reality through logic and reason. These folk may easily appraise spirituality rather than experience it. As an explorer agnosticism may keep them away from personal prayer.

Conflicts among these four types of religious approaches to prayer occur within the individual as well as the religious movements of our society. I have personally suffered the struggle between the priestly and prophetic roles in prayer, as well the intellectual. I suppose only the naive are unaware of the clash of these positions in our use of prayer.

Some of the effects of personal and individual prayer may be to make us more aware of our inner needs and the realities of life. It can relax us and help us tap our inner strengths. The meditation in prayer can help us to gain perspective and clarification of the problems of life. It usually leads to decision and dedication, which set free latent powers to achieve.

Prayer usually helps us to renew our emotional energy. It makes us also responsive to the social needs around us, sensitive to the needs of others.

Spontaneous prayer may be a momentary cry of distress for help. Disciplined prayer, along whatever route, may be followed in faithful religious practice. It can be awakening and call forth the love and courage we need to serve the realm of God. It can be as therapy to the unsatisfied life.

If our prayer life suffers it could be not so much a failure to bring practice up to theory as failure to bring theory up to practice.

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"Religion NOW" is published in limited edition by the Rev. Ross E. Readhead, B.A., B.D., Certificate of Corrections, McMaster University, in the interest of furthering knowledge and participation in religion. Dialogue is invited and welcomed.