How Do You Pray?

I am reading Henri Nouwen's book, The Road to Daybreak, a compilation of his journal entries from the time when he had decided to leave academic life and eventually move to Daybreak, the L'Arche community in Toronto.  The writings of L'Arche's founder, Jean Vanier, as well as those of Nouwen  have guided my journey in ministry, and I think these voices have returned to my life at a pivotal time.  I am grateful.    

   

Earlier this week, I left a particular community wondering how I can serve a resident who has absolutely nothing pleasant to say about anyone or anything. He is very frustrated about his health, the people who are trying to care for him, everything. I think to compound his troubles, his negativity probably isolates him.  Yet, he is often in the activity room when I am there, and while I cannot say he takes part in our worship services, perhaps he finds something in those gatherings that helps. My attempts at conversing with him have fallen quite flat. 

  

However, in a story that Nouwen refers to as simply "the three monks in the Tolstoy story," I see a glimmer of where I might be going astray.  In this beautiful tale, a bishop decides to visit three monks who live on an isolated island. He soon learned that these three monks did not know the Lord's Prayer, so he proceeded to spend the afternoon teaching them this prayer.  He left feeling satisfied that he had done his pastoral duty.    

As his ship was sailing away, he suddenly realized that the three were running on the water to catch up to them. They told the bishop they were distressed because they could not remember the prayer he had worked so hard to teach them.  "The bishop, overwhelmed by what he was seeing and hearing, said, 'But dear brothers, how then do you pray?'" Their lovely reply was "Well, we just say, 'Dear God, there are three of us and there are three of you, have mercy on us!" The bishop told them to go back to the island and be at peace.  I think this bishop and I have something in common; we both should be asking  "How do you pray?" earlier in the conversation.  I have no idea whether this particularly patient is interested in conversing about prayer, but it is certainly worth exploring.     

  

We all pray, even if we are convinced there is no God, and it seems there is no reason for us to even live. However, in our frustrations, we can loose awareness of what is churning in our heads and hearts.  It is wise to periodically ask this question of ourselves and one another. It can be very helpful if someone reveals to us that our prayers are nurturing animosity, rather than the ongoing opening to the journey to and with God and one another.     

   

Why should I spend an hour in prayer when I do nothing during that time but think about people I am angry with, people who are angry with me, books I should read and books I should write, and thousands of other silly things that happen to grab my mind for a moment?  

The answer is because God is greater that my mind and my heart, and what is really happening in the house of prayer is not measurable in terms of human success and failure...I might think that each hour is useless, but after thirty or sixty or ninety such useless hours, I gradually realize that I was not alone as I thought: a very small, gentle voice has been speaking to me far beyond my noisy place.    

Henri Nouwen, The Road to Daybreak