Q&A
There are already many books about prayer. What makes this one
different?
It’s one person’s story. The book is not about prayer as much as it
describes my individual experience. I’m a so-called cradle Episcopalian
but I hope this book will reach across denominational lines—as well as
to people who don’t belong to any denomination. Most books about prayer
posit a believer’s attitude. This describes a skeptic’s journey, an
ongoing process.
What is about prayer that
changed your life?
Before I started praying, I didn’t know what I believed. I worried that
I had to believe, and I didn’t. But after I began to pray, I saw that
belief didn’t matter so much. That is, I began to trust in the
experience more than needing to explain or prove it. Prayer began to
feel more and more like letting go – like trust. Wonderful in some ways,
terrifying in others.
There’s a lot of death in this
book. Did so much loss test your faith?
No. It really strengthened my faith. I had an experience at my brother’s
deathbed that was very powerful. I didn’t even think of God at the time
but later, when I started to pray, that moment gave me the go-ahead I
needed. When my mother was diagnosed with cancer, prayer helped me be
present with her and stay focused on what mattered. I felt angry at God,
but that anger, that honesty, brought me closer to God.
There is a test of faith in the book – about two-thirds of the way
through, I felt abandoned by God. So, yes, there are dark moments in the
book. But there’s the flip side, too: joy and laughter and love. And
even a happy ending.
How would you describe prayer?
The thing that amazed me was how prayer is a relationship. I expected
something static – a dogma, a code of beliefs. What I found was the ups
and downs, the ebb and flow, of any intimate connection. The initial
skepticism, the headlong fall into infatuation, the growing comfort
level, the lull of hitting a plateau, the disenchantment when you feel
let down, the testing, the troubled times, the coming back together.
Prayer isn’t what we expect. It meets us where we are. It’s about an
attitude of openness and receptivity more than a rote recitation.
What is the most important
thing you hope readers will take away from your book?
That there is no “one way” to pray. That prayer surprises us, again and
again. It’s dynamic and elastic and evolving. We don’t “learn to pray”
as much as we realize we are always learning to pray. It’s always
showing us something new. And that that is a wonderful thing – a huge,
gracious, generous gift.
|