Sunday, October 19, 2014

Alternate Prayer Language

I was corresponding by Facebook message with a grieving friend.  She said she couldn't stop crying.  She said she wasn't good at prayer.

I wrote, "We pray in all sorts of languages--sobs aren't often discussed as prayer, but they are."

I am an English major, an old-fashioned believer in books.  So after some additional interchanges, I wrote, "Anne Lamott wrote a great little book on prayer. She says the most common prayers are 'Help me' and 'Thank You.'  The language of gratitude and the language of sobs--common prayers."

All day long, I thought about the language of prayer, the languages that we might not think of as prayer, but they are.

For example, my pastor, Keith Spencer, takes amazing photos and pairs them with Bible verses.  You can see his wonderful work at this blog site.  His process strikes me as a form of prayer, the kind of prayer that praises God and God's creative power.

What other non-word prayers do we offer?

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