You Don't Have to Pray Out Loud, Do You?

I came into church early this morning, to get ready for our Matins service.  When I arrived, there was one woman kneeling in the chapel, praying by herself.

Sometimes there are two of them.

I quietly marked my scripture readings, found the Psalm and flipped on the microphone.  This woman has been coming in at 7:30 on Wednesday mornings to pray for as long as I can remember.  I didn't want to disturb her before she was finished praying.

This morning she finished up a little earlier.  As I was finishing up my worship preparation, she asked me, "Why do you think more people don't come to pray?"

I told her that I suspected not that many people knew that there was a prayer meeting at 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning.  They operate sort of under the radar.  I also said that 7:30 a.m. may be a deterrent for some people who are not early risers.   All true, but she was not quite content.

"I don't think people feel comfortable praying," she said.  "I know I didn't, at first.  I learned how from Harriet." (another woman who used to come to pray early in the morning).

I said I thought she had a point, and that people perhaps didn't realize you didn't have to be particularly good at prayer to pray.  You don't have to make perfect, eloquent sentences.

Someone else came in while we were talking about prayer.  She took her usual seat in the front.  She was listening to our conversation when she blurted out, "but you don't have to pray out loud, do you?  It's just between you and God, isn't it?"

"No," I answered.  "You don't have to pray out loud."

I thought about it for a moment.

"Except when you do," I answered.

It's true.  You don't have to pray out loud.  Prayer is a relationship, after all.  It is an intimate conversation with God.  Some prayers are just between you and God, and you and God are the only ones who have to know about them.  There are times when God is the only one you can talk to, the only one you trust with the deepest secrets of your heart.  You don't have to pray out loud.

And yet, as soon as I say it, I am a little uncomfortable with this.  Prayer is not my private possession.  It's not just my individual private relationship with God.  Prayer is a gift to the church, the whole church, deepening our relationships not only with God but also with one another.  There are so many prayers that are not just mine and nor just yours, but they are our prayers.  They are the church's prayers, the church's secrets, the church's burdens lifted up.  Because we are members of one another, whether we realize it or not, whether we pray about it out loud or not.

I had the same four boys in confirmation class for three years.  We started out saying just one word prayers together, out loud.  Just one word of thanks apiece.  We gave thanks for our parents, for pizza, for pets.  As we got to know each other, we gave thanks for deeper things, and one day we started praying for things we really cared about:  a grandfather who was dying, homeless people who were staying in our church, a friend who was struggling.  Our prayers were not eloquent.  But they were true.  We learned to trust each other, to be who we are:  the church.

I can understand why people might not want to pray out loud.  I mean, what if people say you are praying for the wrong thing?  What if someone says you don't have any right to talk to God about your dog when there are so many big things to pray about?  What if someone else despises your prayer, or even thinks you are using the wrong words?  What happens when your prayers are not answered, and everyone knows it?  To put a word, or a few words, a dream, out there -- it's a hard thing to do.

We don't have to pray out loud, I suppose.   We don't have to trust each other either.  We don't have to be the body of Christ, with many members, but a common mission.  We don't have to build homes or teach children or fix meals or sweep floors or share love or unlock the doors of oppression together.

We don't have to pray out loud.

Except when we do.

You Are What You Eat, or Cook

I've been thinking hard about food lately. I've even taking to looking back into some of my late, lamented, food-stained and now-seldom used cookbooks, cookbooks from my single days, like New Recipes from Moosewood Restaurant and The Enchanted Broccoli Forest (which I bought mostly because it had the word broccoli in the title). I've even pulled out my old, stained copy of the More With Less Cookbook, reminiscing about my earnest early attempts at eating "lower on the food chain", as we called it then.

Why? Younger stepson, Young Man of Value, is considering going vegan.

He has been flirting with becoming vegetarian for some time, but would make an exception for fish. Now that he's talking about Vegan, though, I'm looking through all of those old, radical (I thought they were radical, then) cookbooks, and finding out that most of their recipes are not radical enough.

My favorite fancy mac-and-cheese recipe from the Moosewood cookbook? One word: Cheese. The great eggplant recipe I tried for a guy I was trying to impress: That one had cheese, too. And other recipes that I have invariably considered healthy, no-meat stand-bys often had milk or eggs.

I admire Young Man of Value's desire to eat ethically, although I'm not myself fully convinced of the Vegan option. One thing that has been good, though, is that's it has gotten me thinking -- both about food, and about cooking.

I've always had sort of a love/hate relationship with cooking.

I've never felt like I was a good cook. I don't have any tales of terror from the kitchen to relate; it's not that so much as it is my knowledge that I am the kind of person who pretty much sticks to the cookbook when it comes to cooking. And when I see a really long list of ingredients or when the instructions start looking complicated, I tend to panic, like when I try to play a piano piece that is way over my head.

I've gone through stages, though, when I've enjoyed trying new (though not terribly complicated) recipes. In Japan, when I longed for the taste of macaroni and cheese, I pulled out the Betty Crocker cookbook and learned to make it from scratch, plopping cubes of cheese into my white sauce and watching it melt. (I was surprised to learn later that a white sauce can be tricky to make.) Just after returning to the U.S., I fell in with some vegetarians and tried a few easy, but exotic-tasting recipes from the aforementioned Moosewood Cookbook (all in my very tiny apartment kitchen). And shortly after getting married, I relied on my Cooking for Two Cookbook and regular advice from the two home economists who happened to be members of my congregation.

I've also gone through stages (like right after we got Scout, our high-maintenance puppy) when I couldn't imagine coming home from work, cooking dinner and heading back to church for the evening round of meetings. Or I couldn't imagine coming home alone as a single person and cooking and eating all by myself. Or I just couldn't imagine what it would be like to cook and eat and clean up all those dirty dishes all by myself (sometimes the cleaning up part did it). I longed for good food, but didn't have the energy to create it.

This past Sunday, though, an article in the New York Times magazine got me thinking again: about food, and the art of cooking. By current food guru Michael Pollan (author of The Omnivore's Dilemma), the article talks about how we are cooking less and less (food manufacturers now market pre-made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, even), but are fascinated with cooking shows. Somehow, he thinks, cooking makes us human. But we have designed our lives with less and less time for these tasks.

Cooking makes us human. Also, cooking makes us healthier, I think. One of the surprises of the Pollan article was the statement that a poor woman who cooks is going to be healthier than a rich woman who doesn't (yes, and that's exactly how he wrote it).

When I cracked open the More with Less cookbook again, after all these years, I remembered the three principles:

1. Eat more whole grains, legumes, fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds.
2. Use meat and dairy products in moderation
3. Avoid processed and convenience foods.

This is where Young Man of Value has it, I think. It's not in the Vegan diet, specifically, but it's in the commitment to cooking and eating real food. This makes me think about what I am missing when I design a life so fast-paced that there is no time to create a simple meal. This happens more often than I like to admit.

But I also admit to a certain joy when I get something real, however simple, on the table. The other night I made a Greek Salad from a recipe I found in a magazine; I've been eyeing another recipe, with Eggplant and Angel hair Pasta, from the same magazine.

They say you can make it in 30 minutes.

Even better, I've been enjoying the fresh fruit of the season as well. Strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries, for example. All I have to do is wash and eat, wash and eat. I can't think of anything realer, and simpler, and more gracious, than that.

Our Dog Is the Best One

(This is adapted and expanded from an article I wrote for my church's newsletter)

My husband and I took Scout to an agility class last week. It's called "Agility for Fun" because it's not necessarily for dogs who are going to enter competitions. Scout, who is 1/2 Golden Retriever, almost 1/2 Husky and a little ?, is never going to be eligible for competitions. But lately we've been thinking... she just needs something to do, an outlet for her energy. I thought about a Tricks class, and I'd also like her to be a Therapy dog someday. But when I talked to our trainer, she suggested that we try agility -- something I had never thought of. In the past, all I ever knew about dog training was "Sit", "Down" and "Heel", although our dog never really mastered "heel" (or "down", come to think of it.)

Scout has been to Obedience I and II. She wasn't a stellar obedience student (which actually says more about us than it does about her). For example, we still have issues with "coming when called," especially if there is a squirrel or rabbit nearby. For awhile, we had BIG issues with coming when called -- we never wanted to let her off her leash in the back yard, because she never wanted to come in. She would keep running away instead. It was very frustrating.

However, we are happy to report that -- at least for this first class -- she was the Best One. She learned to do the "dog walk", go through the tunnel, and even jump over the bars very quickly. After she was used as the example dog for the tunnel exercise, my husband patted her on the side and said, "I can see her rescuing people from burning buildings." He was proud of her. (He doesn't always see her best side.)

At the end of the class, she laid down at my feet, very contented, more content than she had been when we walked into the class, and she wanted to sniff and play with all the other dogs. She was a pain in the neck! But now she was focussed and obedient -- and tired. The trainer says that this is often the case. He told us that it's good for dogs to exercise their brains as well as their bodies. Often "modern dogs" who have all of the comforts of a cushy life with us, are not as stimulated, either physically or mentally, as they can be. Often this is what leads to misbehavior.

I wonder if that's true for us as well. In some ways modern life is more challenging than it ever has been. But in other ways -- well maybe we don't get as much of some kinds of exercise as we used to. I think about this especially when I think about Radio and TV. My dad grew up in the Radio era, and used to tell us about all the old shows he "watched." (The Shadow, Henry Aldrich, Fibber McGee, etc.) Think about all of the exercise those brains got imagining what their favorite characters looked like, or imagining what was happening -- just from the sounds.

A true spiritual life stimulates all parts of our lives: our hearts, our brains, our bodies and souls -- and I hope, even our imagination. For us, there are all kinds of training available: from centering prayer to the discipline of showing hospitality. And in all those things, the goal is to learn to be more focused and less distracted, more open to God's working in the world.

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself."