Bigger Broader Prayers

During one of the prayers today at church, the minister named groups of people around the world who are facing difficult situations. This was nothing new for my church or any church. It’s not new for those who pray under any religious construct, whether Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindi or the many other religions. Those who pray, and I think that’s most people, pray for others.

We pray for our families, our friends, those we know who face health challenges, economic difficulties, relationship troubles and more. We are also called to pray for others— those outside that circle. But do you ever feel like there are so many others?

I do. I feel like there are so many people in the world facing enormous challenges. Challenges to their daily lives, not just the stuff our friends and family suffer, but also threats to their actual existence. And there are so many others that it feels overwhelming. The list of refugee groups migrating across borders is long, the list of those displaced by climate disasters is long, those whose lives are in jeopardy because of authoritarians is a long list as well. And then what about all the animals whose lives are hard and horrible? There are so many that I wonder how we will ever pray for them all.

The overwhelm of what I call “the weight of the world” has dragged on me for years now. Like the foolish sailor in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner who took aim at the albatross, I no longer feel winds filling my sails, and my ship drifts in the doldrums. I feel paralyzing despair.

The Albatross is shot down. (Gustave Dore illustration)

I don’t remember it always being this way. When I was growing up, I knew of our family and friends’ problems and our community’s issues. The evening news brought us national stories of trouble and occasionally international stories. Was my “unawares” a function of my youth and naivete? Or a function of the time?

I was young in the 80s and graduated high school in the 90s and I think my naïve views were both my age and the time. Those days were easier not only because I wasn’t responsible for paying a mortgage, but also because it was a narrower time. Our attentions were slight compared to what they are now. Over the past 30 years, the information flow has increased to what feels like maximum capacity thanks to technology. The lives and scenarios I know about now cover the globe and are mixed with people and creatures I’ve never met in places I’ve never been.

We are more connected to global neighbors than ever before. And we are exhausted from their stories of suffering. But what if we don’t have to be adrift in these doldrums? Our options are better than ever before. We can step up to these global microphones, through social media and messaging apps, and intervene like never before. We can speak up and speak out with more reach and more impact than ever. People, our people, the global us, we are everywhere now. And we see and document injustice and abuse like never before. This helps me remember that we are much more alike than different, and we all want pretty much the same things.

Bigger and broader prayers are called for in these times of unprecedented awareness. My prayers are for not only my family and friends, but for the world’s living beings all over the globe. We are on this planet together, to live with and among each other. And though we face an ages old challenge of how to live in peace, I feel the tides of progress pushing us toward not just global connectedness, but also global caring.

Prayers have gotten a bad reputation lately, and rightly so I dare say. Because when prayers placate us into doing nothing but asking God to solve our problems, then they are wasted breath. Prayers should precede our actions, declare intention, and request a path forward. Prayers are how we lift the albatross from around our neck and feel the winds return to our sails. Prayers help chart the right course so that we may progress even after seeing the suffering. They bring purpose to our witnessing and our empathy.

Lift up in prayer …

It’s time to rewrite our prayers. Let’s lift up in prayer those we personally know and love and who need our special mentions, but also find the language in our hearts to speak bigger, broader prayers. I promise you the technology is not going away. More people connect online every day. All of the animals (and the human animals) and all of the earth need us. They are us, we are them.

We need our prayers. And it is worthwhile to pray because our prayers direct our hearts and our minds. Our prayers direct our hands and feet, our generosity, and our giving. Our prayers inform our hearts so that we may see our global neighbors as belonging to us, and us to them. Prayers light the way that we may act and advocate for our neighbors. We belong to each other. May we remember this in our prayers and may it lead us to right actions.