The Power of Prayer

A month ago, I wrote a blog entry called "Enjoy your time with God" in which I described  how I felt led to spend fifteen minutes a day in prayer  and contemplation. I'd like to report on how this practice is working in my life, but before I do so, a little personal background.

I first began meditating 30 years ago, when I became a Quaker. At that time I had just finished my Ph.D. and needed to find a practice that would help me to detach from my addiction to words and verbalism. I not only attended weekly Quaker meetings and enjoyed its silent worship, I also spent nearly a year in the Providence, RI,  Zen center learning how to meditate Zen-style. For many years, I had a regular daily practice of meditation--a combination of Zen and Christian elements. To help me overcome my ego-holism,  I would often recite the Bodhisattva vows:

"Sentient beings are numberless.I vow to save them all.Selfish desires are endless. I vow to extinguish them all.The teachings are infinite.I vow to learn them all.The way of the Buddha (and I would add, the Christ) is inconceivable.I follow to attain it."

If you take these vows too literally, they can seem unbearably  burdensome. One Zen teacher described it as like becoming  an eternal social worker. But I think the point of these vows is that what is impossible for our egoistic self, is possible if we let the benevolence of the Universe work in and through us. Then we discover we're not alone, and not individually responsible for saving the world. The world is saving itself through us, through our compassion and our willingness to serve.

In addition to saying these Buddhist vows, I would recite the Lord's prayer, which commits us to letting God or the Spirit bring about the Heavenly Kingdom, the Divine Order, the Beloved Community. "Let Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Again, saving the world is not a solo act. It's not about "me," it's about us and God. We don't have to save the world. Our job is to praise God, the God who forgives and nourishes and saves us so that we can be part of God's saving work. 

After reciting prayers such as these, I would center down into silence and let go of my daily preoccupations so that I could be open to the Divine Source of everything....

Over the years, this practice has had a beneficial effect on my soul and my conduct. Little by little, I became a more peaceful and loving person. A faithful husband, a useful and mostly kind Friend, an interfaith advocate for justice and peace. Not perfect, of course, far from it,  but a work-in-progress....

When I neglected this practice, I was like a manic-depressive who stopped taking his meds. Little by little I became more irascible, more anxious, and less fun to be around.

I received confirmation that my renewed commitment to daily meditation/prayer is working. My wife Jill notices a positive change in me and is pointing it out to others. All I can say is: Praise God! I hope others are also noticing a positive change.

Along with prayer, I am taking more time to listen to music, work in the garden, exercise and enjoy breaks from my daily activism. For example, I am writing this blog entry as I sit on our back deck overlooking our little orchard. I can see my cat sunning herself. I can see avocados and oranges ripening and if I look carefully enough, I can see buds on the bare branches of our many fruit trees: plums, peaches, apricots, pluots, and figs leafless now, but promising an abundant harvest in four or five months. Overhead the sky is blue with fluffy white clouds and a  breeze--the kind the ancients called Zephyrus--is blowing gently.The harbinger of spring, the breath of the Divine. It's good to be alive!

But prayer does more than transform us individually. It also has a collective effect. Most of my activism is faith-rooted and involves prayer. Two and half years ago, we began to hold prayer vigils on a city-owned lot called Heritage Square South that was purchased fifteen years ago with HUD money for affordable housing. The city council had left it vacant (except for a Church's Chicken) and we prayed that it would be used to house our homeless neighbors. In addition to prayer, we gathered signatures (over 1000), met with elected officials, and showed up a city council meetings. We were like the persistent widow in Jesus' parable (Luke 18: 1-8):

18 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2 He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. 3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’4 “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”
6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

This parable is about the need to be persistent in prayer, but it also applies to our work as activists. After a ten-month campaign, the city council unanimously agreed that 65 units of homeless housing should be built on Heritage Square South. And the Mayor recommended that the city-owned YWCA next to City Hall should be used for homeless housing. This unexpected recommendation by the mayor seemed like a divine intervention. We launched  another campaign and a year and half later, the council decided that it wants affordable housing on this site. Once again our prayers and petitions have been answered! https://laquaker.blogspot.com/2020/01/our-prayers-for-affordablehomeless.html

I often tell my fellow homeless housing advocates that our city council members are not like this unjust judge--they are all people of faith and conscience--but like this judge, they often need to be pressured to do the right thing. Advocacy takes passion and persistence and wisdom--knowing what to say at the right time to the right person in the right way, and if you're uncertain, keeping quiet. Sooner or later this kind of advocacy pays off in ways beyond what we can imagine.

Our faith-rooted advocacy is having a significant effect on our city, for which I am deeply grateful. We are not also having policy victories, we are also helping to bring about what Dr. King calls "the beloved community." We are bringing together various elements in our city that want to end homelessness and ensure that everyone is decently and affordable housed.

This is the power of prayer. That's why I love the quote from Gandhi: "Prayer from the heart can achieve what nothing else in the world can."  To let God's intention unfold on earth as it does in heaven requires that we let God's intention unfold in our hearts. For that to happen, we just need to have faith and keep on keeping on. Thanks to our faith-rooted and unrelenting efforts, the  City Council is listening, and so is our Divine Advocate, the One who inspires us to do more than we can imagine. 

Living and loving God, help me to remember You daily and be guided by your never-ending wisdom and love. Help me to remember to spend time with You each day and listen to your whisperings in my heart as  I go about my daily activities. Help me to find peace within so that I can be an instrument of your love and peace in the world. Help me not to lose faith, but to persist until Your will is done here on earth as in heaven.  I ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Divine Advocate.