By Judy Wolicki, 57th Street Meeting? and Field Secretary to ILYM
On January 1, 2012, after the November Continuing Committee meeting in St. Louis at which my hiring as ILYM field secretary was approved, I visited Downers Grove Friends Meeting. During the time of lifting up joys and concerns, I stood to tell the meeting of my good fortune to be named Field Secretary. I said that one of my goals in that role is to connect individuals to individuals and meetings to meetings within the Yearly Meeting. I asked that the Downers Grove Friends “hold me in the light” as I worked to fulfill that goal.
About three months later, when I was again visiting Downers Grove, Jean Smith stopped me after Meeting for Worship to ask me how I was doing. She said she had been “praying for me” since January. It was clear to me then why things seemed to be going so well for me. I thanked her and told her how much her prayer had helped me.
As a chaplain at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, IL, I am often asked to pray with and for patients, families, and staff. I approach these requests with some trepidation, as spoken, extemporaneous prayer is sometimes difficult to compose, especially when there is little time between the request and my actually doing it. As a Quaker, I particularly like the “holding in the light” form of prayer. I sometimes think that it is an easy form of prayer. I tend to think it doesn’t require quite the creativity and attention required when I am asked to speak a prayer for another OUT LOUD and IN PUBLIC!
When I am asked to do so, I sometimes explore with those who have asked for prayer what it is they want to pray for. When I was doing my first unit of chaplaincy training at the University of Chicago, I had a colleague who was a priest from Nigeria. He sometimes said in similar situations, “Tell God how you want God to bake your cake.” I have used that tack on occasion. One night I was asked to pray with a family group of adult children around the bedside of a woman who had died. I asked them what they wanted to pray for. They did not respond immediately. So I told them the story of my Nigerian priest friend and asked them to “tell God how you want God to bake your cake.” They laughed in the midst of their grief and said that their mother was a baker who loved to bake cakes. It was a significant moment of grace for them, I think, as the memories of all those cakes, as well as the celebrations that went with those cakes, lifted their spirits at this very sad time for them.
The prayer of “holding in the light” is one I often offer when it seems that spoken prayer might be too difficult for the person. The idea of being held in light can be very comforting. I have found that patients particularly appreciate my offer to do so when they do not have a religious community to which they belong, when they have not prayed in a long time, or when they are uncomfortable with being the focus of spoken prayer.
When Pam Kuhn originally asked me to write an article on Prayer for Among Friends, I was extremely reticent to do so. I questioned whether I had anything worthwhile to say about prayer for other Quakers. My most frequent prayer is, “Oh God help me!” This prayer occurs without my even thinking that I am praying, a kind of “Good grief, did I really say/do that?” when I am suddenly aware that I did something (especially long past) of which I am not proud. Is this really prayer?
When Pam asked me again recently if I would write an article on Prayer, I could find no way to weasel out of it. So I said yes, and “Oh God help me!” I continued to feel that it was unlikely that I had anything to say about prayer that would resonate with other Quakers.
God usually answers my prayers with some kind of help. Whether it is what I hoped for or expected is often a question, and it is always at what seems to me to be the last moment!
This time my prayer was answered with a memory of seeing a book on my shelf that was from my days in seminary. The book is called, Prayer, Stress, & Our Inner Wounds by Flora Slosson Wuellner. A miracle of miracles, I found it right away. I read it again, and it touched me in ways it had not when I was younger. The book offers prayer as a way to heal our wounds and to heal the wounds of our world.
Wuellner questions, “What is the Spirit doing among us now?” In formulating an answer, she relates talking with a ninety-year-old historian and politician “whose mind is as alert as it ever was to the trends and ambiguities of the human scene.” He says, “I am optimistic about the human race… [S]o many people in so many parts of the world have become so keenly aware of the hurts and problems in other parts of the world. Even though we may respond inadequately, this deepening, expanding awareness has become part of our consciousness. And … a compassionate concern is growing along with the awareness” [page 13-14].
“What is the Spirit doing among us now?” In the ninety-year old’s answer, Wuellner sees “awareness of pain as a manifestation of the Holy Spirit” [page 14]. Though the book was originally written in 1985, the observation of the ninety-year-old seems particularly apt for today. We are aware, so what do we do about it?
Wuellner makes a strong argument for prayer. “Part of the spiritual life is to become sensitive to the signals our bodies and feelings give us that healing is needed… It seems to be a spiritual law that sooner or later we treat others as we treat our own inner selves. Powers of prayer …can touch us, heal us, transform us” [page 16]. “Powers of prayer also transform the world through us. Prayer does not merely lead us to action, prayer itself is an action” [page 1]. Finally, Wuellner expresses this belief. “When we unite with God’s love through deep and honest prayer, we become direct and open channels of that healing love to a world in pain. Every time we pray in depth, the world around us, as well as the world within us, undergoes change” [page 16-17].
Earlier I said that I have thought that the Quaker “holding in the light” prayer was easier. I’m questioning that. Is it “prayer in depth?” I believe that it should be.
Wuellner has a number of suggestions of ways to pray, including something called “soaking prayer” [page 21]. In this type of prayer, she imagines the light “soaking” into her. Sounds like Quaker “holding” to me. To my mind, the difference is that I imagine the light around someone else–an individual, a group, a meeting, a family, etc. So I tried “soaking” myself in the light. I found it very difficult to imagine myself as the focus, rather than someone else. It’s so hard to accept help for one’s self. But if, indeed, “we treat others as we treat our own inner selves,” I guess I need to accept it for myself as well. If I have difficulty “soaking” myself in the light, have I been somewhat cavalier about how I hold someone else in the light?
The second type of prayer Wuellner suggests is “prayer of the heart” based upon the parable of the yeast expanding within the bread. The reference reminds me of Friend George McCoy, who loved to bake bread, and who brought a message about the yeast in the dough to many meetings in the last years of his life. This prayer envisages the healing power expanding from within. It also reminds me of a message I received and shared at Clear Creek Friends Meeting. After a number of years of a personal message to me to “open your heart,” I heard, “Open the heart within your heart.” During the Meeting for Worship, it came to me that this “heart within my hear” might be “that of God within.” Is the healing power of God already within me, and within all? Does Wuellner’s “prayer of the heart” offer a way to experience healing for myself and for others in the deep prayer action of “responding to that of God in all?”
To my mind, Prayer is a way of connecting, of forging a relationship, of relating to God, the Light, Love, a Higher Power, someone beyond myself in whom I can trust, someone I can talk to as a friend. And also, Prayer is a way of connecting to those around me. When I offer to “hold someone in the light” I believe I need to be most intentional in my offer, connecting more fully and deeply with all those for whom I am led to pray.
How do I pray? Is prayer efficacious? Does anything change when I pray?
I think this article is an invitation to me, a continuing reflection on prayer as action, an offer to deeply experience relationship, healing, and Love in its purest essence.
