Lord, Teach Me To Pray

I have often pondered what prayer actually does.  In my personal prayers, I pray for many people who are sick in body, mind or estate – including myself.  But what am I asking God to actually do?  Do I want God to hear my prayer requests and decide He/She/It will respond to my request?  On one level that doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense.  If God is all good and all powerful, wouldn’t God do it anyway?  God shouldn’t need my urging to act.  I end my prayers with the caveat – “You know our needs better than we know them ourselves.  Fulfill these requests and petitions as may be best for us.”  However, deep in my heart I hope God’s will and mine line up and are in sync.

 There are stories in the Bible of people changing God’s mind.  In one case Abraham bargains with God about the number of righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah to change God’s mind and not destroy the city (Genesis 18).  Abraham negotiated the number of righteous men required down to 10.  The bible has other instances where God had a change of mind (heart?)  However, in today’s times there are many prayers in which God doesn’t seem to answer them.  If God did there would be many people alive today who were stuck down before what seemed to be their time.  There would be many fewer displaced and injured innocent people in war zones.  I could go on but I’m sure you get the point. 

There is the case of Gretta Vosper, a United Church of Canada ordained minister who is a declared atheist.   She declares that she changed her belief about God because her daughter’s beloved teacher was ill and died despite her and her daughter’s prayers.  From what I read; Vosper believes in a God but not one that intervenes in human affairs in any way.  In the United Church congregation where she is minister, she has eliminated the Lord’s Prayer and probably other prayers of intercession.  The question remains: what do I believe about prayer?  I have prayed for people who have not been healed and returned to health and wholeness.  Some I have prayed for have recovered from sickness in body or mind or estate.  But is that because of prayers by me and/or others?  I have found Richard Rohr to be very helpful in all this. He writes:

I believe prayer is a symbiotic relationship with life and with God, a synergy which creates a result larger than the exchange itself. We ask not to change God, but to change ourselves. We pray to form a living relationship, not to get things done. (That is why Jesus says all prayers are answered, which does not appear to be true, according to the evidence!) God knows that we need to pray to keep the symbiotic relationship moving and growing. Prayer is not a way to try to control God, or even to get what we want.  

Prayers of intercession or petition are one way of situating our life within total honesty and structural truth. We are all forever beggars before God and the universe. We can never engineer or guide our own transformation or conversion. If we try, don’t it will be a self-centered and well-controlled version of conversion, with most of our preferences and addictions still fully in place, but now well-disguised.  Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation July 21, 2024

For me this is a good reason to pray.  I cannot say if prayers of intercession work in the way that people want them to i.e. with the results they pray for.  We do have the example of Jesus Christ who did prayer and taught his disciples and us how to pray.  However, I also believe that prayer changes the person who prays. That is more than enough reason to continue to pray.     

May you be blessed to pray and be prayed for on your journey.

 

Who are those people driving horse powered buggies?(2)

Last time, I wrote about being with a group that experienced a meal provided by an Amish family here on Prince Edward Island.  In this edition, I want to explore what I found out about the Amish faith.  First, I must confess that I didn’t know much about the Amish faith beyond what I had seen in movies.  I had been aware that they were like old order Mennonites in terms of how they lived eschewing modernity.  They don’t drive motor vehicles and use horse powered vehicles i.e. horse and buddies and horse powered machinery for farming.  I had encountered them on the roads near us here riding in their horse drawn buggies and had seen Amish children riding bicycles without pedals.  I was also aware of their distinctive black clothing – the distinctive hats worn by men and bonnets for women. 

At the meal, I was further enlightened about the Amish lifestyle – actually, the Amish way of life would be a better term.  There was no electricity in the house and wood was used as a source of heat and cooking – not a surprise.  Oil lamps were used for light - I mentioned last time that a lamp was hanging from an old electric light fixture.   

The first indication of their faith life was the blessing at the beginning of the meal.  I discovered on-line later that this is a common way of praying for the Amish.  I enquired after the meal about the Amish religious life of that community.  I was informed that the community of nineteen families had three ministers and one bishop.  The worship service on Sundays was held at different homes – no church building.  The worship had hymns at the beginning and end of the worship service which were sung acapella in German.  There was silent prayer as well as spoken prayers including the Lord’s Prayer and a sermon by one of the ministers or the bishop and readings of scripture.  I neglected to find out it the bible they used was also in German.  However, research online notes that the Amish typically use a German version of the Martin Luther Bible. 

Putting the Amish faith in the context of the Christian religion - according to Wikipedia, “The Amish church began with a schism in Switzerland within a group of Swiss and Alsatian Mennonite Anabaptists in 1693 led by Jakob Ammann. Those who followed Ammann became known as Amish.”  Below is a wonderful illustration of the Christian Family Tree with all its many branches which was provided by Murray Watson who teaches courses in Religion at Huron University College.  Note that the Amish are on the Radical/Anabaptist branch of the tree which is comprised of the Hutterites, the Amish and the Mennonites.  The chart shows the membership of the Anabaptist branch has an estimated membership of five million in 2014. 

There is much about the Amish way of life that is commendable in this day and age.  The people who hosted the meal were jovial and upbeat and seemed to be very content in the life they have.  They appear to live their faith which is something which many Chirstian don’t do in my estimation.  We would be blessed to follow their example and live out our faith – whatever it is – more fully. 

    

Who are those people driving horse powered buggies?

Last week, the Tuesday morning coffee group that Lorna and I attend, had lunch at an Amish farm near us.  We have been aware of the presence of Amish families on Prince Edward Island – Canada’s island province.  for the last ten years or so but we have never had a lot of contact with them.  We have encountered the buggies at various times in our travels and have bought a few things from them but had little contact otherwise.  We were looking forward to this experience as a way of getting to know them and know more about the Amish. 

A group of seventeen members of the coffee group carpooled to the farm and our expectations were more than met.  The dinner was hosted by a woman and her two adult daughters.  The man of the house – a farrier (blacksmith) – was away for work.  The main course of chicken was on a large BBQ operated by one of the women - apparently BBQing is not men’s work for the Amish as it is in my family. 

The meal – definitely not a lunch – consisted of BBQ chicken, unique potato salad (the recipe available) and other salads, water and lemonade, with coffee and tea along with huge portions of strawberry upside-down cake with cream for dessert.  Most of the food was raised by the host family or the community with a few things such as salad dressing was store bought.  The hostess noted that they  raise as much produce as possible as food prices in stores are incredibly expensive – no argument here from the person who does most of the shopping for Lorna and me.  We were seated indoor at a large table (two actually pushed together) in very comfortable conditions.  It was interesting that the original fluorescent light fixture had an oil lamp hanging from it. 

 It was a case of loaves and fishes as the quantity of food was limitless with more left over than we consumed - the quality matches the quantity  The hostess noted that this would be shared with other families in their community.

There are three young sons in the family who gave us a demonstration of the buggy they have which is powered by a pony named Judy who is twenty plus years old but very lively.  It is not driven on the roads because the pony is not shoed – perhaps a case of the cobbler’s children going barefoot.  We also got a tour of the barn and saw a new litter of bunnies – more than cute – we didn’t question what lay in store for them in the future.

A member of our group gave an account of how the Amish came to P.E.I.  She got to know Amish people back in Ontario due to her love and experience with draught horses.  The Amish were looking for new opportunities to farm and the land in Southern Ontario was too expensive.  They tried Northern Ontario, but the Canadian Shield defeated them as the land was too rocky to plow with horsepower.  Our group member has been visiting our Island province and was aware that there was good farmland available at very reasonable prices.  She assisted Amish families to relocate to P.E.I. starting about ten years ago.  There are now nineteen families who are purchased existing farm some of which had fallen into a state of disrepair and revitalized them. 

I inquired of one of the Amish ladies about their community life and worship life.  I will delve into what I was told and what I subsequently found out about the Amish religious life in the next edition.  I am very grateful to have had this introduction to the Amish community.  Our hosts were very gracious and welcoming and jovial and seem to fully embrace their lives. 

I believe they are truly blessed as I hope we can all be on our journey.

 

Growing Old

American essayist and wise woman, Helen Luke, in her book Old Age - Journey into Simplicity, writes of the challenge of growing old as opposed to aging chronologically - her emphasis being on ‘growing’.   I first read this work, along with other works by Luke, when I was in my early sixties.  I embraced that approach, and it has been a goal of mine to do just that – grow old with the emphasis on growing.  I have done this haltingly with very mixed results.   Now that quite a bit of time has passed since then and I am old by most definitions – turning 75 recently, I think it would be useful to revisit what I wrote in my reflection on that work.  This was a reflection on Luke’s imaginings of a journey taken by Odysseus following his epic return home from the Trojan war.  It is a journey in which he grows old – a true hero’s journey. 

Here the symbol of his former life—the oar which cut the water and propelled him through the hero’s journey of his youth—has now taken on a new symbolic meaning—a winnowing fan.  The winnowing fan that separated the wheat from the chaff will enable us to see clearly and differentiate the wheat, which provides the bread of heaven to nourish our souls, from the chaff which feeds our egos with empty calories.

 The journey of growing old is one of increasing humility—where we see clearly the folly of youth—the striving and the conquests that youth is inevitably err to.  Will we give in to the temptation to hold onto the dream of recapturing our fading youth or will we seek the new way in which our oars will become winnowing fans. Again, we face a challenge—to plant the oar of our last journey in a new land that will grow as we continue to explore the new land of our growing old.

 As the signs of aging creep up on me and I resign myself to the increasing challenges of greeting a new day with less vigor than usual and I have what seems to be more “senior moments”, I can see that this new land of growing old is not for the faint of heart.  It will bring new challenges as my horizon shrinks – and not just because I need a new prescription for my glasses.  I find myself a stranger in a strange land. This new land requires a new way to navigate through it which I am just beginning to explore, and I haven’t discovered a GPS that truly works yet. 

I will close with a quote from Atul Gawande, a physician and author who has explored this land with his patients and himself with great patience and wisdom:

 

And what I realized is, we were not really talking about death or dying. We were really talking about: How do you live a good life all the way to the very end, with whatever comes? And that’s where you begin to unpack. 

 May we be blessed to all grow old on our journey in this new land. 

Whither Dominion Day?

Somewhere in a dresser drawer, I have a tee shirt with the statement or demand, Bring Back Dominion Day. It has a diagram of a moose and a very large Sir John A Macdonald, Canada’s first Prime Minister. This was an appeal years ago by a journalist of the Globe and Mail newspaper to cancel the name change for our national holiday celebrated today from Dominion Day to Canada Day.  Some name changes such as these are well meaning.  However, they can sometimes be ill founded and based on a misunderstanding about the meaning of the existing name.

June 20, 1868: Governor General Lord Monck signs a proclamation that requests all Her Majesty Queen Victoria's subjects across Canada to celebrate July 1. 1879: A federal law makes July 1 a statutory holiday as the "anniversary of Confederation," which is later called "Dominion Day." Today, Dominion of Canada is the country’s formal title, though it is rarely used. It was first applied to Canada at Confederation in 1867.

Sir Samuel Leonard Tilley, Premier of New Brunswick, suggested the term Dominion, inspired by Psalm 72:8 (from the King James Bible): "He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth." This is also echoed in Canada's motto: A Mari Usque Ad Mare (Latin for 'from sea to sea').

The change for Dominion Day to Canada Day was inspired (but not inspirational) in an effort to eliminate archaic language and make it more meaningful and proper to the times. Unfortunately, in my humble opinion, it is part of a movement to make the language we use void of anything that might be poetic and catch the imagination of people.  To my ear, Canada Day sounds lifeless and sterile compared to Dominion Day.  The excuse in changing language to make it clearer and easier to understand often kills what language should be used for – to enrich and bring meaning to something.  This kind of language is appropriate for legal documents, but it is tragic when it is used for symbols that should resonate on a deeper level. There are things which should use poetry and not prose to express the importance and meaning of the thing itself and what it represents.  It is the difference between a sign which points to one thing and a symbol which cannot be described by itself.  Canada is one of those things which should be described in a symbol and not a sign.

I could talk further on this and bring in the changes in the prayer books of the Anglican Church of Canada from the poetry of the traditional Book of Common Prayer to the less than inspired language of the modern Book of Alternative Services - the names say it all.  However, I will leave that for perhaps another time. 

May all Canadians have a wonderful Day celebrating the wonderful country of Canada and may you all be blessed celebrating this day that the Lord has made.