prayer or answers... chicken or egg...

Over the past few days a simple question has been swimming around me 

“What is prayer?” 

In a country that prayer has a very different face, a different favour to what I have experienced in other countries I have been present in. 

Let me just say that firstly, there is no right or wrong way of prayer, I am not saying this nor believe this. 

If I was to explain prayer to my niece, I would say its making a wish. Simply putting out there into the universe the thing you desire help with, assistance or dream of. 

Prayer though is not this simple, as you grow I think it changes along with been filtered and shaped by our experiences. Relationship and consciousness would be the words I would choice. The awareness of the elements of the divine in human life, bring us into contact with our Creator who lives in us and around us. Prayer is not personal devotion - oh how its not - rather its personal growth. While prayer enables us to be immersed in what is fundamentally and truly divine in the life right now, it is not meant to be a bridge to somewhere else because God is not somewhere else. I think this is very important. 

Leaving me to come to the conclusion that prayer is an act of beginning the process of becoming one with the One we seek, eventually melting into God completely. 

Why is it even important this question, does it matter if I have an answer or can formate words to paint a small bit of the image… I question this also. 

I guess over the past month I have witness the church here, the rhythm the people flow to, with chants before the tradition of mass, chants after. Prayers for indulgences, prayers of reciting long phrases of word after word. While the language naturally has a song tone to it, I am sometimes left with the feeling that the song is not in harmony or wonder what depth is there. 

Maybe prayer is like a teabag - I know Joan Chrittister used this comparison. When in an environment like monastic life, the image of prayer as exercise dissolvers very fast, with another layer and level been felt. 

Catholic tradition, around 15-16th century, began talking about prayer in different forms - prayers of adoration, prayers of contrition, prayers of thanksgiving, and prayers of supplication. These are formal types of prayers based on words, but they are not prayer. Prayer moves us from the live of personal consciousness to God consciousness, union with God or what we call the mystical life. 

The implication of this flow out in all we do, all we are and in whom we rest in.

Tie this over to modern day living, sometimes its easy to feel like prayer in separate compartments, like paper trays that sit upon the deak. There is the inbox and the outbox. There is a pot marked urgent and one for the less pressing overflow. 

If I think long enough, I can assign each prayer with a neat little label - Answered, Unanswered, ongoing, expires in two days. The paper trail of prayer is clearly defined. Requests move in one direction. Responses in the other. 

Prayer in reality is nothing like the paper trays. The truly astonishing thing about prayer is not that our prayers are sometimes answered. The thing that never fails to startle me, to wake me up, and scatter the paper piles in my mind, is that even the prayers themselves are given. 

The power of prayer! This we often hear, yet do we believe it? 

Sometimes prayer is like which comes first, the chicken or the egg! Like the seeds and flowers. Prayers and answers are a puzzle that I hope I never solve!!