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I was six the first time I prayed. My mother paid me a quarter for every Catholic prayer I memorized. It took no time at all to amass great wealth, as defined by a six-year-old. A god I couldn’t see was a god that wasn’t there, “our father” wasn’t my father – also not there – and Mary was just an eyeless statue hovering over us on Sunday, but as long as I could recite the Our Father, I got paid.
Not surprisingly, I didn’t make it a day past Holy Communion. It didn’t help that cousin Robert, with whom I had to share my communion party, stole the Bible made of icing off the top of our cake. He got away with it, which was all I needed to know about the faith I’d soon escape.
It’s been more than five decades of school, work, unemployment, family, relocating, rebuilding, illness and health, loss and love and luck of all kinds. There were a few times I thought I was going to die. A few others when I wished I would. But I never bargained or begged and I certainly didn’t pray. I just hoped the pain would end.
I retired early last year and needed to fill my world anew with faith in life, nature and people. At first, I spent my days outside, immersing myself in renovating our orchards that had suffered from years of neglect. Then I focused on nurturing my husband after surgery, traveling and visiting with our daughter here and at her new home in Portland. Over winter, I developed a plan that would build community right outside our front door with free events all year long.
Still, I needed a more established community of people dedicated to integrity and truth, kindness and decency. Given my history, church was the last place I’d look. In my experience, most people fill their “good Christian” account on Sundays and are overdrawn by Thursday.
It’s really hard to find community in rural Iowa when you’re not from here, your kids are grown, you don’t live in town and you’re not a Christian. I tried.
Finally, I gave in and checked out churches. A few months later, I surprised myself by joining the Unitarian Universalists Society in Coralville, IA. They smile and greet you every time they see you, not just on Sundays. They work all week in immigration centers and prisons, at free clinics or to steward the eight acres they own. They keep full a free pantry with good food. They organize a trip to Guatemala to plant trees. They host nature camps for kids. They mow their own yard and pick their own weeds. They bring cookies to meetings! I saw myself there.
This is a group of people who choose to spend their time and resources fighting for social justice, who find spiritual energy in serving those in need, who recognize class as a segment of marginalized people and who dedicate themselves to treating fellow humans with respect. “Service is our prayer,” they say. That was the first inkling that a kind of prayer existed that I could get behind.
And after the meetings and mailings, translating, rehousing immigrants and feeding needy families, we need to be able to laugh, eat and relax together. We need to do it in a place where we’re all accepted without judgement. We need community. A committee chair who brings cookies gets that.
Every Sunday, Rev. Diana calls on us to enter a time of “meditation and prayer.” I focus on meditating, but I still struggle. Why sit quietly and clear your mind when you could be getting stuff done? Still, when people gather just for that, it would be rude to step outside and prune the oak because soon it’ll be too late for this year.
Then recently the rev yanked me out of my mental meandering when she said the greatest prayer of all is, “Thank you.” That was a jolt. Did she mean we can thank the universe for air and gravity and that’s prayer? We can thank our parents for life, good people, ghosts and spirits, those we love, trees, our bodies for working that day, time, the weather? We could thank the hope, just the hope of growing old with dignity surrounded by people we love? And that’s prayer? I could get my arms around that. I could squeeze that tight. I could feel love in that and it was worth way more than a quarter, even in today’s dollars. So I go back every week now. I’ve become a Sunday-morning-go-to-church person. Never saw that coming.
So, in the spirit of what I’m learning, please hear my prayer: Thank you for helping me build this community on Substack. I hope every two weeks what I offer here makes you feel a little less lonely, a little more inspired and most of all, appreciated. Let me know by subscribing or sharing it with others so they subscribe.
Start the conversation: What does prayer look like or sound like to you? When someone says, “I’ll pray for you,” do you wince or do you smile? Why?
Or has this below ever happened to you? I think you already know the answer for me!
Please share your thoughts in Notes or comment below.
Gratitude
Often I have felt that I must praise my world
For what my eyes and ears have seen these many years,
And what my heart has loved.
And often I have tried to start my lines:
"Dear earth," I say,
And then I pause
To look once more.
Soon I am bemused
And far away in wonder.
So I never get beyond "Dear Earth."
Source: Kathleen Montgomery, ed. Day of Promise: Collected Meditations, Vol. 1 (Skinner House Books, 2001).
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Thanks Aubrey! Do you remember having to memorize the prayers? Did they make sense? You're so lucky if they did!
Hm, I like that one too Denise! We have to have some language in our lives stronger than "thinking of you" that lets people know that 1. we know there are forces greater than we are and 2. we care about one another. Prayer is one of those that never sat well with me. As you can see, I struggle. I like "hold you in my heart." Thanks for that!