It was during one of those nights of many nights lying awake, mortality breathing on my cheek, when I took stock of my prayers. You see, my prayers are not really prayers. They are more like distress flares over a dark sea.
"Real" prayer, so to speak, that personal and intimate bending of heart, mind and will toward God when one is alone, has become far too intimate for me. I am afraid of what I will see, not of God, but of myself. I shudder at the thought of too much scrutiny, so I shutter the windows to my heart.
How silly, I know, to think God cannot see what I try to hide. The fact is, I am not hiding a thing from God, only from some part of myself. And even that is not true; the denial is of something, and that thing is known and understood. I see everything that is known. The denier knows.
But perhaps not even that is true. Perhaps that is why I do not pray, because I do not want to learn another heretofore unknown thing about myself, about how I have let another person down, or disappointed God. It is sad to say this, but it is true that the vast majority of my Christian experience revolves around disappointment: that my parents and teachers and friends and family and God -- always God -- expect more, are disappointed. How rare to hear a sermon about a God who is not disappointed, to hear of his pleasure, approval and delight. Is nothing ever good enough for him? Is he never happy? Has he no contentment? One wonders what sort of God we worship who never delights in his children without some reminder that they have left him a bit cross, a tad disappointed. Is this the way God -- our Father -- wants us to think of him? Surely there are days he wants us simply to be grateful that we are not under condemnation, celebrating the freedom of a love that perfectly casts out all fear. Or are we always and every day to feel that we have let him down? Is that the perfect love that casts out all fear? Or is that the imperfect love that casts out just some fear?
This morning I will go to church. I will be reminded again to sing about how wonderful God is; I will be reminded that I must say nice and right things about him, or else. I will also be reminded that I have fallen short, that repentance and contrition are due once again. That I still have things to work on, to improve. That God loves me unconditionally -- but.
St. Paul declares that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. None! Nada. No condemnation at all. And yet there is so little freedom in the wake of such great news. Nearly every Christian I know worries, worries so much they weigh their words, their prayers, with diligence bordering on obsession. They speak watching their tongues, afraid to say the wrong things, afraid to upset God, afraid that he will take something away from them in order to teach them some hard lesson. Most of the time, it all seems like a great big bargain: "God, I will be obedient and grateful and prayerful and adoring, just don't mess up my plans, kill me before I have lose my virginity, take my well-paying job from me, harm my children or strike me with illness. Deal?"
And I notice that when I raise this issue about fear, about there being no condemnation for those who are in Christ, I am greeted with a rejoinder that leads inexorably to some anxiety about whether anyone is really certain about being IN Christ Jesus.
I have heard Christian teachers of prayer exhort their charges to "pray with precision," to pray with bold "accuracy." But why? What will happen if I don't? Something bad? Will God punish me if I fail to put the name of Jesus in every sentence I speak? Will I be in trouble if I forget to close my prayers with the "in-Jesus'-name-I-pray" coda? Will I be in trouble if I am not "specific"? Will I disappoint God again?
Indeed, if my prayers in the dark are not always signal flares over a vast silent sea, they are, sometimes, a question. What, O Lord, does it mean that "perfect love casts out all fear?" Where, O Lord, is this love, this place of fearlessness where love is not disappointed?
Admittedly this personal essay carries with it the potential cause of more anxiety, namely that we should be anxious about having God wrong. But that sort of anxiety would be silly. What is not silly is that there is a gospel that claims to have set us free, free from guilt, anxiety, fear; from having to weigh our words; from worries about whether God will smite us if we don't get everything right. Even the signal flares in the night are OK, no? Surely God does not shame us for being afraid. Does he?
If there is anything he might shame us for, however, is that as Christians we believe that fear is normative, that God must always be approached with language that appeases his short temper; that God's default emotion toward us is anger and that he is always looking for reasons to chasten. But the irony suggests paradox: God might be angry for our seeing him as fundamentally angry.
To rephrase another St. Paul passage, if God is against us, who can be for us? Sadly it seems I believe that God is against us. Unless, of course, I get everything just right.
©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
Showing posts with label Prayer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Prayer. Show all posts
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Friday, April 18, 2008
A Crisis Of Credit, Identity Theft
It is nearly impossible for me to write anything anymore. I have overdrawn my checking account; I am deep in the negative. There are little slips showing up in my mail box: the bank wants its money. I dig deep into my pockets, I search beneath the cushions of the sofa, I paw through the rejectamenta of my car's glove box. Nothing but a few coins.
Surely the bank will not care if I tape them to a card and toss it in the post.
____________________
Perhaps I am exhausted by a particular pleasure. It's a sordid one, I admit, and one thoroughly pervasive in our culture. It is the pleasure derived from criticism, of reading criticism, of being a critic. It is the fatigue that befalls the cynic, particularly the reluctant cynic.
But maybe it's not about criticism. Maybe I am tired of defending what I believe. Maybe I am worn through, having given way like the denim that covered a little boy's knees. Or maybe I am empty, not because I have given too much away, but because I can't find anything to replenish my mind. In this case, it's not what comes out of a man that corrupts him. What corrupts a man is that there is nothing going in.
Perhaps.
____________________
Of course, the problem lies with me, within me. I am a fool for looking "out there" for things to fill the void. The poets and prophets know better (or so they say) and I should too, as I've read their couplets and been burned by their ire. To look elsewhere than myself is to cast blame, to look for a target onto which I might cast aspersions. It is to out-source, if you will, the problem, the cause of the malaise. My grief is not, ultimately, rooted in injustice, or in the vapidity of presidential campaigns, or in the obscenities of culture. My grief is mine: I am the source of my weakness. For I have, in part, put too much meaning, too much import and value, on things outside myself. Such objects of devotion are indeed idols, and they may take the form of real people, like a spouse or a president; or they may be ideas or ideologies or promises uttered by a candidate reported to be as good as Christ.
Indeed, I DO place too much meaning on things. I once was rejected by a woman -- a woman! -- because she thought I held sex in too high esteem: She chided me that sex was "too meaningful" for me. I recall at my 20th high school reunion a conversation I had with an old friend, Helen. She told me that in high school I scared women off because, as she said, "you wanted to get into their heads, and not their pants." How could I reply that I thought that was what women wanted?
I confess my guilt. I have put my hope and trust in things.
_____________________
What does it mean to be happy? Is it enough to to get up in the morning and drink tea while watching the day's birds gather outside on limbs and lawn? Is it enough to ask God to forgive me, again, for forgetting that He is not an idol, a talisman, a magic lamp? And is it enough to say little prayers, just little ones? Is it enough to ask God questions in the morning, and then, beneath the deep night's full moon, ask the same questions again? Does a loving father ever tire of little talks with his children? Is he deaf to the chattering choruses of "why, why, why?" Does he grow weary of giving answers?
In all my years loving birds, I've never heard one bird change its song, nor have I ever grown weary of hearing the same winged symphony. Let the chickadee sing the same song all day, for it comforts me. The crow soothes me. The oriole and the rose-breasted grosbeak bring me no small joy.
Of course, I correct myself. There is one bird I know that does change its song. I will not mention that bird here, for its name almost suggests harassment. But I love that bird's nocturnal tunes, though its voice is that of all other birds (and other similar sounds) and not its own. Perhaps today I am like that bird -- that voice of many voices -- calling out in the night, trying out many songs, hoping to land on one that is, in the end, the voice I thought I had.
And I wonder, in the end, if happiness is really rather simple, and it has just one voice: Gratitude.
Peace.
BG
©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
Surely the bank will not care if I tape them to a card and toss it in the post.
____________________
Perhaps I am exhausted by a particular pleasure. It's a sordid one, I admit, and one thoroughly pervasive in our culture. It is the pleasure derived from criticism, of reading criticism, of being a critic. It is the fatigue that befalls the cynic, particularly the reluctant cynic.
But maybe it's not about criticism. Maybe I am tired of defending what I believe. Maybe I am worn through, having given way like the denim that covered a little boy's knees. Or maybe I am empty, not because I have given too much away, but because I can't find anything to replenish my mind. In this case, it's not what comes out of a man that corrupts him. What corrupts a man is that there is nothing going in.
Perhaps.
____________________
Of course, the problem lies with me, within me. I am a fool for looking "out there" for things to fill the void. The poets and prophets know better (or so they say) and I should too, as I've read their couplets and been burned by their ire. To look elsewhere than myself is to cast blame, to look for a target onto which I might cast aspersions. It is to out-source, if you will, the problem, the cause of the malaise. My grief is not, ultimately, rooted in injustice, or in the vapidity of presidential campaigns, or in the obscenities of culture. My grief is mine: I am the source of my weakness. For I have, in part, put too much meaning, too much import and value, on things outside myself. Such objects of devotion are indeed idols, and they may take the form of real people, like a spouse or a president; or they may be ideas or ideologies or promises uttered by a candidate reported to be as good as Christ.
Indeed, I DO place too much meaning on things. I once was rejected by a woman -- a woman! -- because she thought I held sex in too high esteem: She chided me that sex was "too meaningful" for me. I recall at my 20th high school reunion a conversation I had with an old friend, Helen. She told me that in high school I scared women off because, as she said, "you wanted to get into their heads, and not their pants." How could I reply that I thought that was what women wanted?
I confess my guilt. I have put my hope and trust in things.
_____________________
What does it mean to be happy? Is it enough to to get up in the morning and drink tea while watching the day's birds gather outside on limbs and lawn? Is it enough to ask God to forgive me, again, for forgetting that He is not an idol, a talisman, a magic lamp? And is it enough to say little prayers, just little ones? Is it enough to ask God questions in the morning, and then, beneath the deep night's full moon, ask the same questions again? Does a loving father ever tire of little talks with his children? Is he deaf to the chattering choruses of "why, why, why?" Does he grow weary of giving answers?
In all my years loving birds, I've never heard one bird change its song, nor have I ever grown weary of hearing the same winged symphony. Let the chickadee sing the same song all day, for it comforts me. The crow soothes me. The oriole and the rose-breasted grosbeak bring me no small joy.
Of course, I correct myself. There is one bird I know that does change its song. I will not mention that bird here, for its name almost suggests harassment. But I love that bird's nocturnal tunes, though its voice is that of all other birds (and other similar sounds) and not its own. Perhaps today I am like that bird -- that voice of many voices -- calling out in the night, trying out many songs, hoping to land on one that is, in the end, the voice I thought I had.
And I wonder, in the end, if happiness is really rather simple, and it has just one voice: Gratitude.
Peace.
BG
©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
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