"I will pray for you."
Of the many phrases that ministers use, one that might be the most common might be "I will pray for you."
It has become aware to me that that phrase may be misunderstood by people.
When I say "I will pray for you", I do not mean I will not just add you to a laundry list of people or situations. I will not just pray "for you" as one might ask God to provide you something as just one of many voices that will also ask, and thus operate like nagging children to a parent. I will not just pray for you as a way of thinking of you for a moment.
I will not pray for you so that you do not have to pray.
Rather, when I say I will pray for you I mean that in light of your situation, you may not be able to pray for yourself. You may be in a situation that is difficult or troubling that results in your inability to pray. Perhaps you are so overjoyed in life that you are unable to focus on praying for the least, last and lost of the world. Perhaps you are so down that you cannot pray for new life, new creation and resurrection.
It is in these situations that I will pray for you.
I will pray for you when you cannot pray for yourself.
This ought to be part of the reason why we go to worship on Sunday regardless of your state of mind.
Perhaps you cannot pray that day - the community of the Body of Christ will pray for you.
Perhaps you cannot sing that day - the community of the Body of Christ will sing for you.
Perhaps you cannot listen that day - the community of the Body of Christ will listen for you.
Perhaps you cannot lament that day - the community of the Body of Christ will lament for you.
I will pray for you when you cannot pray yourself, because we are the Body of Christ. We are the Church.
I know that there are days for which I cannot pray, sing, listen or lament...
and I know the Body of Christ will do that for me.
The Power of Liturgy
Roman Catholics (RC) are given a bad wrap often in the way they do worship on Sunday mornings. If you have been in RC worship is stereotyped as being much like the directions on the back of shampoo bottles: stand, sit, kneel, bow, repeat.
When I attended St. Mary's University (a RC University) in San Antonio, I attended worship often in the many RC communities and had many conversations with RC Christians. In part because I worked as a sacristan to the chapels on campus and in part of a natural curiosity, I asked many RCs about their worship and how, at the time, it felt like people were going through the motions without thinking. Most of my peers would tell me that some of the rituals did not mean anything to them, most did. As one who was not raised in the RC denomination or attended RC worship often I felt like I was going through the motions every time in worship
Until the day I was going through the stand/sit/kneel/bow/repeat cycle in worship and was able to think of a thesis for my political science paper for my "final project".
The power of the ritual struck me at that moment: with my actions and words already memorized I could free my mind to not think about the actions at hand and could think about other things!
If you are like me you grew up memorizing your multiplication tables. We memorized these not because we lacked calculators or computers, but the process of memorizing these bits of information made multiplication move from thinking to instinct.
When we think about something, our minds are occupied and what we are thinking about is all that we can think about. So in the beginning when we are thinking about the problem "4x4=" our brain:
Interprets the symbols 4 and x and =
Counts by 4s, four times (4, 8, 12, 16)
Stops counting at 16
Locates the appropriate place to write 16 on the page
Writes 16
All of this takes a bit of time, in the beginning as we learn. But over time, we move from having to think about the problem to just instinctively knowing the answer. 4x4=16
While we were once spending large amounts of time and brain power to compute the answer, we could not think of much else.
The same for wrote liturgy.
Liturgy frees our brains from having to think about what is happening next and what to say next in order to allow our brains to consider higher levels of thinking.
In the cover story of the recent TIME, which talks about Tiger Mothers, this little quote comes to the surface:
When I attended St. Mary's University (a RC University) in San Antonio, I attended worship often in the many RC communities and had many conversations with RC Christians. In part because I worked as a sacristan to the chapels on campus and in part of a natural curiosity, I asked many RCs about their worship and how, at the time, it felt like people were going through the motions without thinking. Most of my peers would tell me that some of the rituals did not mean anything to them, most did. As one who was not raised in the RC denomination or attended RC worship often I felt like I was going through the motions every time in worship
Until the day I was going through the stand/sit/kneel/bow/repeat cycle in worship and was able to think of a thesis for my political science paper for my "final project".
The power of the ritual struck me at that moment: with my actions and words already memorized I could free my mind to not think about the actions at hand and could think about other things!
If you are like me you grew up memorizing your multiplication tables. We memorized these not because we lacked calculators or computers, but the process of memorizing these bits of information made multiplication move from thinking to instinct.
When we think about something, our minds are occupied and what we are thinking about is all that we can think about. So in the beginning when we are thinking about the problem "4x4=" our brain:
Interprets the symbols 4 and x and =
Counts by 4s, four times (4, 8, 12, 16)
Stops counting at 16
Locates the appropriate place to write 16 on the page
Writes 16
All of this takes a bit of time, in the beginning as we learn. But over time, we move from having to think about the problem to just instinctively knowing the answer. 4x4=16
While we were once spending large amounts of time and brain power to compute the answer, we could not think of much else.
The same for wrote liturgy.
Liturgy frees our brains from having to think about what is happening next and what to say next in order to allow our brains to consider higher levels of thinking.
In the cover story of the recent TIME, which talks about Tiger Mothers, this little quote comes to the surface:
Daniel Willingham, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia. "It's virtually impossible to become proficient at a mental task without extensive practice," he notes. What's more, Willingham says, "if you repeat the same task again and again, it will eventually become automatic. Your brain will literally change so that you can complete the task without thinking about it." Once this happens, the brain has made mental space for higher-order operations: for interpreting literary works, say, and not simply decoding their words; for exploring the emotional content of a piece of music, and not just playing the notes.
While in liturgy I am wrapped up in the moment so that I am not actually thinking about it. I am not thinking about what to say but rather I am thinking about new God images or how to respond to massive problem or how to reconcile with my neighbor.
Liturgy leads me to think about higher order things. The only problem is that in order for the liturgy to be utilized in this way, I have to participate in the liturgy often. Otherwise, if I only participate in the liturgy one time a month, I am working in worship like I did when I was memorizing my multiplication tables.
And that sucked.
Worship: Less Six Flags, More Skiing
It is interesting to me that when I hear someone is going skiing, I get excited and wonder when I will go skiing myself. However, when people share with me when they go to Six Flags (or Disney Land/World) I almost pity the poor soul. The thing of it though is that Six Flags and skiing have a lot in common.
- There is a lot of standing in lines in order to have short periods of excitement.
- Each are expensive.
- Food on the mountain and in Six Flags is unhealthy and kinda bad.
- Rules inform the culture of the whole experience
- There are whimsical maps to direct the visitor
There are many other similarities, but that is not the point of this post. The point of this post is there are major differences in Six Flags and skiing that make me desire skiing and generally avoid Six Flags. The thing is, I see many of the Christian worship services I have attended seem to function more like Six Flags and less like skiing.
I wish to participate in worship that is less like Six Flags and more like skiing.
- While monetarily expensive, there is little more demanded of the Six Flag guest. Skiing demands the guest not only pay money, but come prepared with equipment. What would worship look like if there was a greater demand on people other than just "showing up?"
- There is little empowering at Six Flags. There are maps that people can follow to learn the lay of the park, but there are no classes to better oneself and you are left to overcoming your fears on your own. However, in skiing there are ski lessons to help overcome your fears. There are different "levels" of skiing runs that connect to the skill of the skier. There are different types of lifts and even different types of equipment that connect to your skill level. What would worship look like if there were different levels of "depth" participation?
- Each ride in Six Flags only has one "track" you can go on. There is no flexibility in choosing if the roller coaster will go left or right. The track is already put down. Ski slopes have runs that are set, but within that run there are a number of routes one can take. What would worship look like with greater personal flexibility and choice that 'fit' within the overall "run" of worship?
The metaphor is not perfect, and any metaphor taken to the limit breaks down, but, I wonder what worship looks like if it were less like Six Flags and more like skiing?
Be the change by Jason Valendy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.