WHAT: I am taking a class in Seminary called “Spiritual Formation”. One assignment is to write about a page worth of thoughts that interact with content of each lecture and readings or somehow connect with my own spiritual formation. It’s meant to be more introspective than scholastic.
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THE FIRST has to do with prayer; I have been reading about prayer from a wide variety of people and time periods. I've always valued prayer as a spontaneous activity. I value that at any time and any place I can talk to God about what I want. I like that I don't have to have the 'perfect' words in order that God will hear me or understand me. I know that God sees my heart and that on a certain level the words that I use don't even matter that much! I love this about God.
A passionate, unplanned, and unrehearsed prayer has always been a very beautiful thing to me. As I think about it, I think I've viewed many of the Psalms to be like this.
I was reading some of the work of Evelyn Underhill and she suggested that we stop and make preparations to pray. She suggests that we craft and plan out our prayers. I've always been very resistant to this. I've never really like reading the prayers of the church fathers or anyone for that matter (unless it was found in the bible). I haven't put much thought into my reasons for the resistance, but I think that somewhere in the back of my mind I've thought that once a prayer has been prayed, it loses a little bit of its potency or something. A prayer that was written down lacked the spontaneous, from-the-heart feel to it. In the same vein, I've never really liked the idea of either writing down my prayers or planning them out in advance, but today I think I may see the value in that sort of thing.
After all, we carefully plan the songs that we write for God, can't we do the same for our prayers? Are songs and prayers really that different?
Underhill suggests that planning out our prayers (not all of them) engage our intellect. It helps us to think about what we want to say, ask or declare in a way that will ultimately enhance the experience. So, I think to engage something new in my spiritual formation, I will spend time thinking through and writing out a prayer. I will take some time to consciously avoid the passionate, unplanned, and unrehearsed prayer in favor of a passionate, intelligent, well-thought out prayer. Additionally, I will write one down.
SECOND: One of our readings was some writings of Soren Kierkegaard. We read a collection of prayers (see above about my previous distaste for written prayers). In one of the prayers he asks God to not be patient in light of his mankind's childish behavior. He went on to talk about gratitude and about how we don't really have adequate words to be genuinely thankful… then he likened us to that of a mistaken child who is only grateful when he gets his own way.
I have a teenage son and I've been thinking a lot lately about his lack of gratitude… which I think is a serious problem for him. He is quick to be grateful for rides here and there. He almost always shows gratitude for food. But I've been thinking about his lack of gratitude for bigger things that people do for him.
In light of my negative assessment of my sons gratitude muscles, the Kiergegaard statement had a sting to my own heart...I read that statement from Kierkegaard as if I am childish in my gratitude. I think that I am that "mistaken child" who is often only grateful when I get my way. In one sense, a person SHOULD be grateful for things that go their way, but my gratitude muscles have failed to acknowledge the source (God) in a meaningful way.
Follow me here: I am very happy that I have a place to live right now. I truly am grateful that I live with my parents and my family isn't out on the streets trying to survive. I am really, really, heart-felt grateful for this!! I have even thanked God for this – multiple times. But I feel like I've not entered a higher level in my gratitude. I have been thankful that I've gotten 'my way' – a place to live. What I haven't been thankful for is that I've gotten God's way. There are deeper layers of gratitude that I haven't tapped into in a long time. I may have thanked God for supplying my needs, but I've stopped short of thanking God for keeping me in HIS plan; for leading me to something that He wants. One level (on which I've been stuck) has me being thankful for what feels comfortable or what keeps me from feeling too awkward, this level of gratitude is based on myself, my personal comforts. On another level, I've not connected with the big picture of God who is getting what He wants, which in turn benefits me much more deeply than personal comforts.
So, I think my son should be thankful that he gets to live at home (the lower level of gratitude), but I also think that He should be thankful that I've saved him from some incredibly serious heartache and pain as he did something that I wanted (the higher level). And it's not just that living at home is what I want in some narcissistic-power-hungry sort of way, but because I absolutely know beyond a shadow of a doubt that following my plan in this situation is the absolute best possible thing for him. So, just as he should be grateful that I 'got' my way in his life; In the same exact way, I should be grateful that God gets his way in my life… and I should not like a mistaken child who is only thankful when he gets his own way.
