Thoughts on Prayer

It is Tuesday morning and cold, cold, cold. Wind whips down the avenues, my hair is frozen. My eyes all watery. And it is almost March, so no one wears their winter hat and there are sandals in the store windows and bikinis too. That funny thing about people acting like spring, even when it is still clearly winter. I went to college in Maine and we were always wearing t-shirts and drinking beer on the porch on Saturday afternoons in late February, even though there were great swaths of snow still burning up the lawn; and some would even take an ice-y leap into the frozen ocean probably to be cool and impress the girls. And it was cool and did impress the girls. Because that, I suppose, was an act of faith.

Spring returns every year. I have not been here for the last seven years to witness it, but they say it is so. The crocus pokes its little yellow head out of the ground, through the layer of dead leaves still mulching from last fall. Forsythia bloom. I remember it certainly from childhood. We are acutely aware of spring in New England because it comes one month later than it would if it were polite. It is a late guest. That one month of waiting---February, even into March---is the tough one. Though the days are growing lighter, they are still pretty dark. Bleak. Salty highways, bare black trees; last week the stroller hit a bump on the curb and tipped forward and over, caught by the ridiculous wind. Haakon fell out. My coat was flapping and my scarf was all twisted and my hat was over my eyes and the wind was disorienting and cars were going by. I couldn't reach him. His blue magic wand rolled into the street. He panicked about the wand. The wind was so strong I couldn't gather it all up. A man who was pushing a rack of dry cleaning stopped to help. The rack of dry cleaning started to roll off. I had scratched my knee in the melee. I felt like the worst mother, like a pretend mother who didn't even know how to push a stroller. I really wanted to cry, but Haakon was crying and it was so windy and awful, and racks of dry cleaning were rolling down Park Ave and my stupid Russian hat was covering my eyes, so I couldn't even cry.

That, ladies and gentleman, is late winter.

So what is prayer? Prayer is spring. Prayer is when the darkness and bleakness and harshness of winter is cleared away, if only for a moment. Who doesn't hear the crocus groan itself out of the cold damp earth? Who doesn't hear the first returning birds rejoice? Listen: that is prayer. They say you can pray when you are driving your car or feeding the kids lunch, But I don't 100 percent believe it. I think it deserves and rewards to clear a little space for prayer. A house of worship is fine because it is already done: the candles, the lack of distraction, the peace and divine. But you can light a candle in your bedroom and take three minutes there too.

And here is what I'm beginning to learn. Praying is not always asking, or negotiating, impressing, begging or whatever we do in our usual conversations. There is a part of prayer that is this: listening. You can ask and negotiate, but don't forget to listen. Sometimes, not always but sometimes, it's amazing what you hear. If you give it the time and space, the world will guide you. Prayer is cleaning a space. And it's opening the window and listening for spring. Hm, yes. Yes, prayer taking a moment to listen for spring.

The sketch, "Purple Crocus - Sun Reaching" is by Alice Kelsey, whose work can be accessed here.

Comments

[Kol]

I love the last two posts, and will be willing the time a few short weeks away when i can worship those first shoots popping so bravely from the new england earth. The listening as prayer and the habits of thought that become worship that Wallace references seem very connected to me. We talk a lot about listening on (at least) 3 levels: (1) listening to the words (assuming we're listening to a person talking) as they are on their own, and would be recorded on tape, (2) listening to the voice in our head as it hears the words and what it says, and (3) listening to how we react, the judgments we snap to, the physical body reactions that happen, etc. This takes some energy and concentration - active listening - but its helpful in recognizing and being conscious of those habits of thought... and consequently how we can be aware of 'worshiping the good things'. It helps us be empathetic with other people (as well as crocuses and other natural systems) - and helps us find common ground and solutions to our big problems... maybe even some of those wars that the Bubba won't have to go to.