Thinking about prayer

      ‘Have you done your practice? Have you said your prayers?’

      Those are two questions I remember from my childhood. Odd questions . . . no one in the house could have failed to notice whether I had done my practice. And my mother was always in the house. The other question seemed a bit intrusive. Whether I’d said my prayers or not seemed to be my affair, not anyone else’s. But my discomfort at being asked the question arose more from the fact that on the occasion I remember, I had to say ‘no’. And I got the distinct impression that that was the wrong answer!

      Reflecting later, I realized that these were not really questions at all, but a bit of parental control, making sure that I did the important things – rather like ‘Have you cleaned your teeth?’ And further reflection, much later on, made me think that as questions, they entirely missed the point. Doing my practice, saying my prayers were not activities for their own sake, to be done, ticked off for the day and then forgotten about until the next parental nudge; they both led on to something greater. Piano practice was important because it was part of becoming more musical – something those within earshot must have hoped would happen sooner, rather than later. And saying my prayers was part of growing more prayerful, part of establishing that relationship with God which is the foundation of all Christian living. I wonder if it would have been more helpful if I had been asked ‘Have you become more musical today? Have you become more prayerful?’

      Prayer is an expression of our relationship with God – and one of the other things about it that I eventually realized is that saying my prayers, like practising scales, was only the beginning: my practice needed to spill over into the whole of my life. Because that is what relationships are like. We don’t stop being related when we are not consciously present with the person with whom we are in relationship. The relationship continues as we go about the ordinary things of life. We may think of the person we relate to from time to time – ‘John would be interested in this; I must remember to tell Mary . . .’ And from time to time, regularly, we need time with the other person to catch up, get to know them better, enjoy their company. I know that I don’t play the piano nearly as well now that I don’t practise. We all know of relationships that drift or founder because we don’t make time for them.

So our prayer time is the time when we practise the presence of God, so that all our life may be filled with the presence of God. Most people think that behaviour matters and prayer helps it. The truth is that prayer matters, and behaviour tests it.1

      One of the odd things about our Christian life is that on the whole we don’t talk about prayer. I had piano lessons which didn’t just test how I was getting on, but gave me and the teacher a chance to look at techniques that would help – a difficult passage would become easier to cope with if I sorted the fingering out, or a piece of music might come to life if I played some of it more quietly, and didn’t just hit the notes . . . But I didn’t have much help with learning to pray. It was something that on the whole I was left to get on with. We went to church, there was the odd sermon, but I don’t remember anyone saying to me, ‘How are you getting on with your prayer life?’ So I suppose I grew up thinking that I was supposed to know about prayer, and that everyone else already knew. That is what we do think, probably. We look around and see everyone else devoutly concentrating, and don’t realize that behind the closed eyes and clasped hands, there is as much confusion and inattention as there is in us.

      There is a skit by Joyce Grenfell in which she is shown in church singing a hymn: ‘Calm and untroubled are my thoughts’ – and then we realize that she is singing what she is actually thinking about – she forgot to turn the gas down under the saucepan of chicken bones she was turning into stock; she imagines the pan boiling dry, the stove, then the house, catching fire; where will they sleep tonight? If she goes home now, she might be in time to save the picture which is supposed to be a Picasso, though she’d much rather save her photograph album . . . She turns to her husband and sings, ‘I suppose you didn’t think to check the gas? No, I didn’t think you would have.’ The skit ends with her singing again, ‘Calm and untroubled are my thoughts’.

      It’s funny not just because it’s Joyce Grenfell, but because it rings true for us all. We all find it difficult to concentrate, to find time – we get stuck in ways of praying that perhaps we need to grow on from. We have to learn