Thoughts About Thoughts And Prayers

Can we talk about prayer for a moment?

Everyone prays. Odd place to start, I know, but hear me out. Everyone prays.

We made prayer a religious thing, a ritual part of the structure around how we try to know God. The word itself can be traced back to ancient times from a word meaning to ask or entreat. And that’s pretty much how we’ve tended to see it.

Sometimes prayers offer thanks, they do, but I often think we’re being thankful for what we received because we have it. In other words, it was either needed or wanted but probably expected. How often do we pray with thanks simply to be?

I don’t want to take that tangent just now, though. The thing about prayer being a ritual, particularly a religious one, is that we tend to focus on “are we doing it the right way,” especially the words. Are we using the right ones? No disrespect, but it doesn’t help that, when someone asked Jesus how we should pray, his response was, well, words. Words we literally cast in stone as The Lord’s Prayer (Matt.6 and Luke 11).

Sure, in Matthew he says something about not being showy about it and in Luke he says we should persevere in prayer, but words matter to people, and finding the right words is often the hardest part of prayer for most people.

Not just words, though, sometimes people pray with images or more artistic ways of expressing their thoughts. There’s even something called Praying with Colour, which is essentially doodling while your mind just wanders around the thoughts of what or who you’re praying about. That might sound a little silly to some, but we’re actually getting somewhere with that because we’re letting go of the focus on words and images and focusing instead on our thoughts.

That brings me to “thoughts and prayers,” an expression that’s either used way too much or not nearly enough, depending on what you mean by it. First of all, still just words. Unless it’s backed up by action, it’s still just words. That action begins with exactly what it says, thinking about them/it and praying them/it. It could then become more concrete action around how one could help and offer more practical support. All prayer should lead to action, whether specific to a thought or prayer, or more generally in how we live our lives.

Second, “thoughts and prayers” has two very opposing uses. It’s what makes it tricky to say. At worst, it’s an expression used to avoid doing anything at all. Maybe I’m being overly cynical, but it does seem to be something to say in order to not respond in any real meaningful way. For example, one could site politicians and leaders using it after something horrific happens, knowing full well that they’re aren’t going to do anything about it.

But at its best it’s an attempt to reach out and connect without knowing exactly how. Maybe we don’t know what words to say, if there even are words to say. Maybe we don’t know how to reach out or what to offer or how to support and care. But we’re trying to make a connection because we have empathy and compassion. We love. 

I think prayer is really about our own spirit trying to make a connection with the spirit that’s in all living things. That’s what we may know as God,  or a variety of spiritual things depending on our faith tradition, or we may simply know as the spirit of life or some other way of describing that energy that is in all living things.

That’s why everyone prays. It doesn’t matter how you know God, if at all. And words aren’t important. What is important is making a connection, one spirit with another or many together. It’s hearts offering a swell of love and compassion that reinforces spirit and inspires action. Prayer works.