Last week I practically breathed prayer. It was not, alas, because I suddenly reached the lofty heights of sanctity. It was because challenges popped up everywhere.
One friend had a young daughter undergoing complicated surgery, another had surgery for colon cancer, and another’s husband had a cyst on his brain drained.
A different friend was frantic with last-minute disasters for an event planned for a non-profit, while the son of someone else lost his job and was suicidal. In the midst of all this I learned that my eldest is having a reprise of a significant health problem. And on Friday I spent several hours handling a crisis with one of my teens.
It kept me busy. I sent up little missives before each email I sent, prayed as I listened to friends pour out their hearts, found myself reciting the Lord’s Prayer while my clumsy fingers mis-typed text messages of support.
I prayed when I walked to the subway, did the laundry, cooked supper and let my mind wander in meetings. In retrospect, what was unusual was that it felt as if each day was one long thread of prayer on which events and difficulties were hung, rather than that I limped from event to event with prayer as my cane.
This week–with most of the crises past, or at least staggering toward resolution of some sort–it occurs to me that intense difficulty helps us approach a major issue about the role of prayer.
Do we use prayer to get us through real life?
Or is prayer our real life?
It makes a difference.
