Recognizing the opposite of prayer — and returning to the real thing

meditation + liminal dispatch, 10.21.19

In recent years, I have watched prayer mutated into the opposite of itself. Dismayed, I have at times felt myself a part of this process, too.

I’ve watched prayers made utterly generic and impotent, a cardboard cutout of caring meant as a stand-in for courage. I have seen it made a weapon, a dull thud used to tear down an enemy, a poison dart dipped in a thin veneer of piety and patriotism.

I notice lately prayer made a grave: lifeless, dark, sneering.

Lord, save these evildoers who don’t agree with us. Thoughts & prayers. We should pray for him, he’s clearly not well. Pray for her, she’s sick in the head!

There are several things about all this that make me uneasy, chief of which is: the natural result of treating the sacred with such cynicism is decay. It deadens us to both the purpose and the actual power of prayer, intention, and connection.

What are we doing, using the language of devotion as a way to prop up and justify the very worst impulses in ourselves? And what do we think the end result will be?

Prayer is not a substitute for action, and it is not an excuse for spiritual laziness. It is itself active, even in its surrender…