A Prayer Meeting of Sorts
A Black Eyed Story
Gordon Parks – Daily Prayer. Brooklyn,New York, 1963
Much Bigger… Grander, More Subtle, More Elegant… Even Greater Than We Dreamed…
“Worshipping God is itself an act of rebellion, as Empire demands to be worshipped alone.”
—Claudio Carvalhaes
And while I love this quote, I feel I’ve been given a god who’s been dressed in embroidered, tasseled robes provided by the Empire, then placed in a gilded, stain-glassed building etched by the Empire, or spotlit on the amphitheater stage created by the Empire – forged by the Empire’s collection plate.
I want the God who cannot be contained and prefers the company of their own worship – and seeks nothing from us.
So how do I pray these days? Barely – and barely above a whisper tucked somewhere deep within me, beneath the soft murmur of my heart.
I picked up this book called Liturgies from Below: Praying with the People at the End of the World by Claudio Carvalhaes when I still believed that prayer was a prerequisite for wholeness and the only way to “know” God.
No longer holding God in the either-or of black and white, I haven’t sought prayer quite the same because I no longer feel responsible for saving the world. I no longer think of a God who waits impatiently for prayers like a parent waiting to be texted a thanks, or a request, or an update on my whereabouts. So today, my goal is to interrogate the prayers I’ve marked as essential when I thought prayer was the only way to speak to God.
One of the passages I highlighted in the book reads:
“Only a prayer that has its ear attached to the earth, its eye upon those who suffer, and its hands stretched out in solidarity can help us realize our distance from God and a world in flaming pain.”
This thought is preceded by a series of questions:
“How are we to pray with the unwanted of the world?”
“How can our prayers not only address the disasters of the world and the killing of people everywhere but also, in God’s love, offer hope and actions of transformation?”
“How do we get to the point where we can see our own vulnerability, our own incompleteness, our own frailty [and I might add – our own fragility], and our own shakable ontological structure and impossibility to deal with life itself?”
It’s a lot to think about.
Though it does guide and make suggestions, the book doesn’t give exact answers. Which is appropriate. No one can really tell us if prayer “works.” But I do believe that each of us knows when a prayer has made us feel better or, at the very least, more connected to something more vivid and brighter than ourselves.
Believe me, the book is full of gorgeous prayers – however, here are three prayers I feel comfortable sharing as I fumble through my own dark and mysterious corners searching for Light.
Gordon Parks – Life Magazine. St. Benedict’s Abbey. Atchison, Kansas, 1955
For this first prayer, I struggle with the assumptions it takes. Is it just me? As a Black woman, I don’t want to be prepared to sit next to my worst enemy. Were the marginalized considered when the prayer was written? Do I want a God who holds my enemy’s hand as tenderly as they do mine?
Also, I spent decades offering prayers to people whose values and ways of life not only revolted me, but sought to erase me. Is there a way to love God and also love the humanity within my enemies, if not my enemies directly? I don’t know.
If my enemies are mongers of patriarchy, misogyny, racism, wealth and hierarchy, then maybe this prayer isn’t a prayer but a challenge.
COME IF YOU ARE WILLING
Liturgies from Below: Praying with the People at the End of the World
by Claudio Carvalhaes
Come, if you are willing.
Come into this place, but be prepared to find yourself sitting next to your worst enemy.
Come into this place, but be prepared to find yourself offering prayer with someone whose values and way of life revolt you.
Come into this place, but be prepared to find yourself.
Be prepared to find yourself in dark places, dark thoughts, that you would prefer to remain unacknowledged.
Be prepared to live in a world that can never match your memories of what it used to be, or dreams of what it might be.
Be prepared to know you are loved, but be prepared also for the outrageous news that every other human being is loved no more and no less, no matter what you or they do.
Come, if you will, but be prepared for an uncertainty that will not quickly be resolved, for a discomfort that will not easily be salved, for a hunger that will not willingly be satisfied.
Come, if your are willing.
Gordon Parks – A Cloistered Life of Devotion, 1955
GOD IS HERE TOO
Liturgies from Below: Praying with the People at the End of the World
by Claudio Carvalhaes
Come!
Come into the place where God listens!
Where you need no money, no status, no fine clothes!
Come as you are
Broken, whole
Sick, well
Satisfied or with deep needs
Come to sing
Come to cry
Come to hear
Come to see
Come and be ready or
Come to be made ready
We are here
God is here too.
Gordon Parks – Pastor Ledbetter. Chicago, Illinois, 1953
Because I no longer believe in a God who is All-Powerful, for this next prayer I’ve changed the word “power” to “reason.”
I just don’t believe that power has a place in God. Power is too all-consuming and too easily manipulated. It’s duplicitous – and God is not.
So if God is not the equivalent of power, then what makes God awesome? For me an omnipotent God is just as the word says: omni - potent. And who needs that? Maybe awesomeness is something more attractive. Could God be all-beautiful, all-loving, all-meaningful and all-reason? For me, that God is awesome.
But… if you’re uncomfortable with a powerless God, feel free to keep the word “power" for this prayer. I, however, can’t fathom a God who has the power to heal, to fix, or to solve, not using that power. Or even worse, waiting for me to ask them to step up. So my thought is maybe God is something better than power – beauty, wholeness, reason, love, meaning, completeness. Maybe a powerless God is just the kind of vulnerable God we need. I’ve found far less abundance in places of power than I’ve found in places of vulnerability.
THE POWER REASON OF GOD
Liturgies from Below: Praying with the People at the End of the World
by Claudio Carvalhaes
Be blessed, you who move
Be blessed, you who mourn
Be blessed, you who are meek and merciful –
For you are the power reason of God.
Amen
Gosh that’s some honest writing. I have many questions too. I try not to be mad at what I was taught. And I’m looking for what I believe.
Dorothee Soelle wrote about a powerless, vulnerable god in Theology for Skeptics. She wrote that god cannot be all-powerful, loving, and comprehensible. Many christian traditions portray a god who is powerful and comprehensible, but not loving (the most violent fundamentalists); or as powerful and loving but not comprehensible (more soft/reasonable fundamentalism that I belonged to for a while). But she argues for faith in a god who is loving and comprehensible, but powerless, which I think fits god you describe as awesome.
On a different note, early in motherhood I approached everything that felt too hard with prayer. Sometimes my 3 year old found my prayers comforting and would ask me to “pray longer.” But there were times when something felt too hard for her or she was scared, and I asked if she’d like me to pray, and she would say, “no, that doesn’t work.” It was so good for me to hear such plain spoken authenticity. She was asking me to add more tools to my toolbox, which, holy shit has been so essential and life changing. Now I rarely pray, and I send my prayers in a different direction, beneath or behind me, so I really identify with the poetry of your piece.