Simply simple prayer

Spiritual Life, Winter 1999 by Matthews, William R

The simple prayer Yes opens us directly to God, especially those, who like me, devour religious books the way some devour recipes but who open a can of tomato soup for lunch and have dinner at Wendy's. Help, however, follows Yes. Generalized petitions in the language of liturgy or prayer book are not enough, nor are perfunctory morning devotions, followed by going off to work as though the human creature is either meant or able to strive alone. Help says God is ever-present: "It is I who tend to be absent." He is here supporting the smallest of my experiences. Religious men and women of the East make sacraments of the most private functions of the human body. Dalrymple writes, "For us there is only the trying; the rest is not our business" (p. 70).

I should be praying for help to live a life which overflows with love for others, to enjoy this ice cream cone, these exchanged smiles with a stranger on the street, the tower of blocks my grandson and I have erected and the satisfying crash as it topples, the late-night conversations with my wife Irene, the E-mail from one son or another announcing the newest triumph in their lives. I pray for help to find words for this essay.

The desire to say Yes to life and to ask for Help is undeserved, a freely given gift. My most important prayer is, therefore, Thanks. Some, convinced they deserve more, carp about their gifts: the unsightly wrappings, the frayed decorative cord, the cheapness of the thing. How sad, I think, as I pray for them. God gives us all gifts, valuable or not, to enrich our lives-perhaps not much but always enough. Thank you for my wife of fifty-two years, the adventure our journey together has been. Thank you for the gifts of daily writing, Sunday School teaching, my confirmation students, the lay sermons I will preach, my daily walks in the sun. Thank you that I can still have and enjoy friends, young and old.

When each moment is over, each task completed-no matter how mundane-I say Thanks. When Irene and I awaken in the morning side by side, we reach for each other's hand: "Thank you, dear Father, for another day of life together." I suppose it is Pollyannaish to view life this way, but optimism is God's gift too, for which I am grateful. Ron DelBene writes, "To pray without ceasing on every possible occasion means that we are to be in a state of remembrance of what God has done, and is doing, for us" (p. 26).

From these three prayers-Yes, Help, Thanks-grows a fourth: the privilege to serve. I am made in the image of my Creator, a God of pure love. In spite of my human propensity to put myself first, I pray for the opportunity to reflect this love to others. Without constant reminders, I am apt to ignore not only the stranger wounded in the ditch but the suffering friend. Service is God's most precious gift. I dare not treat it as an intrusion in my life.

Books Cited

1. John Dalrymple, Simple Prayer (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, Inc., 1984).

2. Ron DelBene, with Herb & Mary Mont

gomery, The Breath ofLife:A Simple Way to Pray (Nashville: Upper Room Books, 1992).