On Prayer

You ask me how to pray to someone who is not.
All I know is that prayer constructs a velvet bridge
And walking it we are aloft, as on a springboard,
Above landscapes the color of ripe gold
Transformed by a magic stopping of the sun.
That bridge leads to the shore of Reversal
Where everything is just the opposite and the word ‘is’
Unveils a meaning we hardly envisioned.
Notice: I say we; there, every one, separately,
Feels compassion for others entangled in the flesh
And knows that if there is no other shore
We will walk that aerial bridge all the same.

Czeslaw Milosz

So I work at a university, right, and my office is near the (incredibly tiny) Muslim Students’ Association room. (The room is tiny, not the MSA.) I was in the washroom and I walked in on a woman, who was wearing hijab, with her stockinged foot propped up awkwardly against the sink. She kind of startled, and I picked a stall and went into it and by the time I was finished she had hurried out.

I felt like saying, look, it’s OK. I know you have to wash your face, hands and feet before you pray. Don’t worry about it.

Speaking of hijab, the last time the topic was on the news, they were discussing whether burqas should be outlawed in Canada. They played some listener calls and there was a student from my university who called in saying, “I don’t have a problem with burqas, there are people who wear them here at the university.” No, you idiot. There are no burqa-wearing women at our university. They wear hijab, that is, modest clothing that covers their arms, legs, and hair. Headscarves and long sleeves are NOT the same thing as a head-to-toe garment that renders a woman’s face invisible and field of vision extremely limited. JUST SAYING.

Speaking of Muslims, today is the premiere of a new sitcom here in Canada called Little Mosque on the Prairie. It’ll be on in half an hour, I guess I’ll watch.

In other news, First Church of Suburbia’s associate pastor resigned on Sunday. This allows me the momentary joy of clinging to the notion that perhaps they might hire a woman to replace him!

In Winnipeg, we have something called New Life Ministries, run by a guy named Harry Lehotsky. Harry is a New York state native who misspent part of his youth doing some hard living, but changed his ways when he woke up one morning in the gutter (literally).
Now he’s a pastor who works tirelessly to improve the West End of Winnipeg. New Life buys up condemned apartment buildings and houses and renovates them into clean, safe, affordable housing in a neighbourhood where you might get the last thing, but not the first two. Last year New Life renovated a derelict movie theatre and adjacent building into a performance hall and restaurant. Now bands and movies play at the theatre and the restaurant is a bright, friendly room that serves tasty and well-priced food.

Harry Lehotsky works the system, lobbies City Hall, fights off massage parlours and spends his time trying to make life better for the people of the West End. He and I aren’t on the same page when it comes to certain issues (he ran as a Conservative in a provincial election a few years back), but no one can deny this guy is a positive force in our city.

Today Harry Lehotsky was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer, which, as you may know, is pretty much the worst cancer you can get.
My dad knows Harry through all the pastoral things; my mom’s friends with his wife; my brother and I are friends with one of his sons.

So on a personal level, this whole thing is distressing because you know Virginia and Brandon and his brothers Jared and Matthew are going through hell. I know what it’s like to sit in the waiting room in intensive care while your dad on the ward. It really freakin’ sucks.

But then there’s that other level, the fact that if we lose Harry, everyone in Winnipeg does, too.

I know a lot of you reading are praying people, and if that’s the case, now would be the time. I personally always expect the worse when it comes to these things. Sometimes people are healed. Sometimes they aren’t. But you have to hope.

UPDATE: He’s out of the hospital now, but the doctors have given him two weeks to nine months.

I still haven’t figured out how to pray (within my new paradigm, as it were), so it’s quite confusing when I feel the urge to pray and I don’t know if I should channel that urge in the conventional way.

Like, when it comes to Death Cab for Cutie.

Tickets went on sale today for the Death Cab for Cutie/Franz Ferdinand show that will be happening in town at the end of April. Last night I was getting ready for bed and thinking about how I’d messed up and didn’t manage to get tickets for either of the presales that happened this week.

And all of a sudden, my brain starts to go, “Please, please God let me get tickets for this show!”

I do a mental snap-take and put a halt to that kind of prayer immediately. These days I’m having trouble believing God is in the business of healing physical ailments, let alone arranging that I get concert tickets.

So instead I prayed something I’m more comfortable praying to God, that is, “Please help me to realize that concert tickets, even for bands which have never played my city up until this point and are pretty rad, are just not that freakin’ important and help me to focus on the things that are.”

I’m having some pretty significant health problems these days, and I don’t really know how to pray about it. I guess it’s safe to pray, “Help me to deal with this illness.” I don’t know if I’m ready to ask for some more radical divine intervention. I guess given all the people around the world who die every day of illnesses that are treatable and/or preventable, I do wonder if God is in the business of direct action in people’s lives, in that way. I don’t know.

In the end, I got my Death Cab tickets. And, it turns out, the answer to my prayer.

technorati tags: death cab for cutie, franz ferdinand, prayer, god, religion

I’ve been thinking about prayer.

In all my religious activities, I’m looking for new ways to approach the sacraments and conventions of Christianity instead of reverting back to the way I always did things growing up. I’ve been reading Gail Ramshaw’s Under the Tree of Life: The Religion of a Feminist Christian and had some thoughts piqued by a chapter on prayer, but I don’t think there’s room in this entry for rumination on that, so I’ll have to save my reactions for another day.

What actually sparked this particular entry was a post (an old one, but hey, cut me some slack, I’m new) at semplice. Jonathan writes:

meditative prayer is no different than eastern meditation for all practical purposes. some will argue, and i think correctly, that the object in the meditation is quite different for christians. we would meditate on god or god-like things whereas a buddhist or hindu would not.

I actually wonder if Christians can learn a lot from Buddhist meditation and indeed Buddhist teachings in general. The goal of Buddhist meditation is to be, essentially, as present and in-the-moment as possible, to focus only on the activity in which one is currently enagaged. There is a book on Buddhist meditation and knitting, which may seem strange to many (especially those of you don’t realize that knitting is cool and awesome. If you are one of those people you are wrong, just like the people who don’t think that Dolly Parton is totally awesome are wrong). It makes a lot of sense to me. Traditional Buddhist meditation focusses on the breath as a focal point for bringing the consciousness to the present, and Tara Jon Manning suggests using the stitch as the same vehicle for mindfulness. I find knitting to be incredibly relaxing (that is, when I’m not working out the math on a sweater pattern or reading the pattern wrong and decreasing ever second row when it should be every third or…) but Manning takes the point that often, while knitting, we let our thoughts wander, to the TV show we’re watching or to our work problems or to the other minutiae of life that can get oh so aggravating. She suggests that we can train our minds to focus on the present, the simple act we are performing by wrapping yarn around needle, and as such do far more to still our spirits.

So what does that have to do with Christian meditation? The knitting part, not much. It’s just that I find it so difficult to not talk about knitting that it found its way into the entry all on its own.

I think Buddhist meditation techniques are quite applicable to Christianity. I think this because I read in the bible that God first introduces godself only with the name “I Am.” That’s it. An expression of being and being in the present.

I’m reminded of a popular poem, a posterized version of which can be found at your local Christian temple of commercialism. It’s by Helen Mallicoat, and its title is “My Name Is I am.” What the hell, may as well post it in its entirety (copyright be ignored, for now, I hope Ms. Mallicoat doesn’t mind).

I was regretting the past and fearing the future. Suddenly my Lord was Speaking:

“My name is I am”

He paused.

I waited. He continued.

“When you live in the past with its mistakes and regrets, it is hard.

“I am not there. My name is not I was.

“When you live in the future, with its problems and fears, it is hard.

I am not there. My name is not I will be!

“When you live in this moment it is not hard. I am here.

My name is I am.”

The poem is a bit trite, plenty androcentric and naturally a little questionable (This moment isn’t hard? I can think of plenty of “moments” that are really bitch hard, thank you very much). However, let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater and consider instead the main message: that is, let’s confine our linear existence to this particular temporal junction. We are linear beings; God is not. To me, “I Am” is the ultimate representation of that. It’s the only way our linear minds can understand the concept of a nonlinear existence, for the “I Am” to supercede even the was and is to come.

Existing in the moment, I think, opens up the soul to eternity. For me, thinking about the past or future inevitably involves a complete retreat into my own brain along with a significant amount of self-obsession. When I have attempted Buddhist-style meditation, I have found it difficult and overwhelming. To exist in the moment is to break down the barriers between the self and the eternal.

I don’t know what prayer is anymore. I don’t know if the kind of prayer that my mother does diligently is the kind for me. But as someone who wants to start praying again, I wonder if this kind of meditative practice might be a good way to start, a good way to enter the presence of God by entering the present.

Thus ends the obtuse and pretentious segment of today’s post. The moral of my story is, Maybe Eastern Meditation Isn’t Evil and also Meditation Is Really Hard and also I Have No Idea What I’m Talking About.

But wait! One more thing.

a zen driving meditation that I have used.

Before starting the car,
I know where I am going.
The car and I are one.
If the car goes fast, I go fast.

A non-deist mantra, to be sure, but helpful in its own way. Very good for rush hour traffic, I find. Also makes you a safer driver, and in this winter season (at least, it is for my half of the world) I wish nothing less for you and yours. Cars are deadly. Be safe.

If the idea of using a non-deist mantra like that queers you out, by all means, go ahead and work Jesus in there… and no, “God Is My Co-Pilot” doesn’t count.