Talking about God – and prayer – even with family and close friends, is difficult. Have you noticed that?
I think for me, the reason is that words never do justice, and can hardly convey, what I really think about God, and what it’s really like, for me, to experience God’s presence.
My relationship with God often takes place without words. But communicating with people almost always involves words, at least to some extent. How do you convey, in words, something that takes place without words? How do you describe the indescribable?
Maybe there are times when a friend or family member is going through a difficult time. You want to pray with them, but aren’t sure how to do that. Just asking, “Do you want to pray about it?” sounds almost too simplistic. It sounds childish, even, as if praying is nothing more than a simple ritual that will make it all better. Prayer becomes a band-aid placed on the boo-boo that doesn’t really need a band-aid. It becomes the magic feather that Dumbo didn’t really need in order to fly.
I don’t know if this is true for you, but I have found that, in certain circumstances, I’m afraid that anything I say will sound like I’m talking about a magic feather; this can make it hard to talk about God or faith or prayer. Especially prayer.
How do you describe something like prayer? How do you tell someone who asks what it’s like to pray?
What is prayer? Ray Buckley, a spiritual storyteller who I’ve had the pleasure of meeting several times, wrote a story about a man who said this: “I believe,” he said, “that when I gather food, it is a prayer. I believe that when I smile at someone I see, it is a prayer. I believe that when I touch a child, or feed my horse, or go to work, it is a prayer. When I do anything that brings joy to the Creator, it is a prayer.”
What is prayer? Rabbi Harold Kushner said, “prayer is not ‘talking to God’ so much as it is using words and music to come into the presence of God in the hope that we will be changed by doing so.”
What is prayer? Brother Roger of the Taizé community said, “God understands all our human languages. God understands our words, and our silences, too. Silence is sometimes all there is to prayer.”
What is prayer? The apostle Paul said, “I do not know how to pray.” Paul also said, prayer involves the Spirit, interceding on our behalf, with sighs too deep for words.
How do you talk about such a thing? How do you explain to someone – with words – what it’s like to experience the Spirit interceding on your behalf, with sighs too deep for words?
My own private prayer is often me sitting in quiet awareness of God: sitting still, listening, wondering, cultivating mindfulness.
It doesn’t usually happen when I’m running around, trying to do too many things at once. It doesn’t happen when I’m sitting in front of a computer or TV screen.
It usually happens when I’m sitting still, resting in my own thoughts… or sometimes, when I’m walking or hiking; my body is in motion, but my mind is still, my mind is free from distractions, and fully present. Times when I can hear myself think, hear my own thoughts, rather than having a steady stream of radio announcers and advertisers the latest “news” from yahoo flowing through my brain.
It takes effort to find moments like that. Jesus sought them in the wilderness. Peter went up to the rooftop. Moses went up a mountain. You just gotta get away from it all once in awhile, in order to hear God, in order to experience an awareness of God’s presence.
And when that awareness comes… When that awareness comes, I can feel it! I feel it in my heart. Not just emotionally, but physically. I think that probably there is a rush of endorphins involved. And I want to start writing about what I’m feeling, hoping that by God’s grace the words I wrote don’t sound like I’m talking about a magic feather.
Or I want to get up and do something. The Spirit does have a way of making us want to get up and do something…
I want to get up and do something, something for God, something that concretely displays this hope and excitement that is within me, something that will allow others to experience the same wonder, the same holy awareness, that has come to me.
I think that’s what happened to Isaiah.
Isaiah had a deeply profound experience of God, an overwhelming encounter with the mysterious presence of the Holy One. I might be inclined to describe it as an intense awareness or mindfulness of God’s presence.
Isaiah calls it a vision.
Did he (I wonder) really see… and by “see” I mean, did he really witness something that anyone with eyes could have seen if they were there, something that could have been captured on video and put on youtube?
Did Isaiah really see God sitting on a throne, with the hem of God’s robe filling the entire temple? Did he really see seraphs – six-winged, griffin-like creatures – floating in the air above God? Did he really hear the seraphs call out, “Holy! Holy! Holy! Is the Lord of hosts!” Did he really feel the ground shake at the sound of their voices, like last week’s 4.0 earthquake?
I don’t know. If a friend came to me and said he experienced something like this, I would maybe wonder if the shaking wasn’t the result of a nervous condition, or a heart palpitation. And creatures with six wings? That’s a lot of magic feathers!
But something wonderful did happen to Isaiah. Of that, I have no doubt. Something mystical. Something beyond words, I think. And when he had to put his experience into words, this is what he came up with.
And, I have to admit: it’s pretty good.
You know about the amazing encounter Paul had with God. In several places in scripture, this encounter is described.
Paul was walking to Damascus with some companions. Suddenly a bright light appeared, and a voice was heard.
One account says that Paul’s companions heard a voice, but saw nothing. Another account says that they didn’t hear a thing, but that they did see the light.
A third account says that Paul and his companions – all of them – were knocked to the ground by this encounter.
All three of those accounts are from Acts. Paul himself describes what happens in the book of Galatians, but all he says is “God was pleased to reveal his son to me.” That’s it. He doesn’t mention a blinding light or a loud voice.
What, exactly, happened? Some people get really caught up in asking questions like that. Was there a voice, or not? Was there a blinding light, or not? If there was a voice, or if there was a light, how did Paul see & hear them, but his companions, standing right next to him, did not?
One could spend a whole lifetime asking such questions.
For me, it’s enough to know that something wonderful happened, something mysterious, something that was, I suspect, beyond words.
And so when it came time to describe Paul’s experience in words, this is what we get.
And, I have to admit, it’s pretty good.
Back to Isaiah. Isaiah had this amazing experience, this wonderful, glorious, awesome encounter with the presence of God. And it overwhelmed him.
Isaiah described it the best he could, with seraphs and voices and ground-shaking and hot coals. And maybe there really were seraphs and voices and ground-shaking and hot coals; who am I to say otherwise?
But I’m not going to concern myself with such things. Instead, I’m going to simply give thanks that Isaiah was able to take time to notice God, to be mindful of God, to clear his mind of distractions and clutter and allow God to enter.
Because if he hadn’t… If Isaiah hadn’t noticed God calling to him… If he hadn’t heard the voice, whether it came from within or without… If he hadn’t seen God, whether or not God was seen with the eye or with the mind…
If Isaiah had never experienced God and written of his experience,… then we wouldn’t have “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” That’s Isaiah.
And we wouldn’t have a wolf living with the lamb, with a little child leading them.
And we wouldn’t have, “For unto us a child is born, and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
And we wouldn’t have people beating their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, learning war no more.
And we wouldn’t have the description of a shoot coming out from the stump of Jesse.
And we wouldn’t have heard of a foundation stone laid in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation.
All these images and descriptions – all these words – are Isaiah’s. He took a rest, he stopped to catch his breath, he paused and cleared his mind, and became aware of the awesome presence of God. And then, using words that inspire us still, he described as best he could his experience of God and of God’s vision for humanity and the world.
I know that, so often, when we talk about hearing God’s voice or experiencing God’s presence, it sounds like we’re talking about magic feathers. It especially sounds that way to our own ears. I think that’s why we mainline, progressive, rational Christians don’t really talk about God all that much. It’s why we try to hide our religion from others. It’s why many of our friends and co-workers aren’t even aware that we go to church, or that we have any kind of a spiritual life.
And maybe, we’re even afraid to have our own mystical, intense, spiritual experiences. If we actually took the time to listen for God’s voice and to notice God’s presence…, we might hear God telling us how much we’re loved. For some people, it’s not easy to hear how much they’re loved. They’re not used to it. It takes some getting used to.
Then we might also hear God calling us to do something that we don’t want to do … like change our life. And then we’d have to ask ourselves: is that really something we want to experience?
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