spouse. God does not, in my experience, change diapers or unload the dishwasher. God is not so neatly contained nor so reliably recognizable. McCord Adams is convinced that God is personal, but this does not mean that God is a big human being in the sky. God exceeds all our human categories and comprehension. This leads to a general rule among Christian theologians, going back to Augustine: if anyone is confident that they completely understand God, then they are not talking about God at all.
God is not obvious, is mysterious, is portrayed in multiple and competing ways. The hard evidence around us does not easily lead to the conclusion that we are in relationship with the Holy, let alone with a loving God who intends goodness for all of us. The beautiful creation of which we are a part includes meanness, suffering, pain, futility, and evil. This leads to questions of who God is and how God operates. These questions are vitally important. And we don’t get to figure them out before we start.
Perhaps it would make the most sense to first sort out exactly if God exists and what characteristics God possesses and how God interacts with the cosmos and then we could understand prayer. However, as far as I can tell, it doesn’t work that way. Earlier I mentioned that Christian theology begins with the practices of faithful people. Efforts to understand exactly what is implied or affirmed by those practices come second. This is summed up in a very old definition of theology as “faith seeking understanding.”5 One might assume that this means you first have to assent to a bunch of ideas, join a religious community, or sign on to a set of values before you can start seeking understanding. However, if we think of “faith,” like prayer, through the lens of relationship, then it becomes clearer. We don’t get to know all there is about God before we decide whether or not to have faith. Instead, we learn about God in the process of “faith-ing,” of relating to God in the world. McCord Adams’s analogies are helpful, again. A child knows little of her parents at birth; a newborn is a bundle of hope and possibility. It is through the daily reality of relating that they come to know one another. One hopes to know a prospective spouse better before committing to marriage, and so there was likely a period of relating before the vows, including a million small decisions to keep relating in order to get to know the other person better. And long after the wedding day, partners continue to grow in understanding one another. McCord Adams states that God is the subject matter of theology (that which theologians are trying to understand) and prayer is part of how we come to know God.6
I’m suggesting that we start praying, including talking to God, before we know who God is. This is true for an adult who doesn’t belong to a particular tradition and yet lights a candle for a friend going through hardship. It is also true for a small child being raised in a church. The children’s minister teaches the kids little songs about God and little prayers to God; it is in the singing and the praying that the children come to have some sense of who God is.
Theologian Karl Rahner says that the word “God” is the term that culture and history give us to ask the really big questions about ourselves and the world. The term “God” helps us ask questions about the meaning of the universe and of our lives within it. History also gives us the word “God” to use when we are talking about aspects of our experience that open up beyond ourselves, which many might call spiritual. We need language to gesture towards parts of our lived reality that defy explicit definition; the word “God” helps.7 I would add to Rahner’s two-fold description of the word “God”; it is also the term that history and culture give us to use when we desire to be in relationship with that which we cannot pinpoint but still feel called to. It is a word that helps us pray.
Electronic Networks
When I first joined Facebook several years ago, I was pleasantly surprised that this social-media tool is so often used for prayer requests. People ask for prayers when loved ones are ill, when preparing for a job interview, when embarking on a new project or adventure. Sometimes people post specifics, “Pray for me at 10:00am tomorrow!” and sometimes not, “Unspoken prayer request. God knows the need.” Often, people make space for various interpretations of what they are asking for, requesting “prayer, mojo, or good vibes.” A lot of people are doing something that fits within an expansive understanding of prayer, using a variety of language. Some of these people are “spiritual but not religious.” Many have experienced harm in churches or other religious settings. Some never had a religious upbringing; others reject the terms of the religious tradition they inherited. In the midst of all that diversity, uncertainty, and ambiguity, people are reaching out to relate to God, or the Holy, or the Universe—whatever term they prefer—and they are asking others to join them. Remarkably, the communities of prayer that emerge do not require those involved to agree on all the terms—what is meant by “prayer” and precisely who is “God”—in order to be part of the collective communication.8 Long before all the answers about who God is are worked out, people move towards relationship with God. Drawn by intuition or curiosity or hope or longing—we pray.
The act of prayer reveals a deep hope that God cares for us. Prayer shows the hope and, in some sense, the act of believing that our lives do not play out in a neutral setting or a context apathetic to our existence. In praying, we act as if God is interested in our lives and in us, as if we are already in relationship with God and more is invited. Various religious traditions, including Christianity, affirm this and take it further based on other forms of revelation or knowledge: that God desires goodness, moves toward love, urges compassion, and is justice.
Prayer and Perspective
When we pray, we bring ourselves and our concerns before God—precisely the God who is beyond our comprehension. This shifts the framing of our own existence. It can alter our sense of scale.
Our vision (literal and metaphorical) is usually honed on the mid-range—on trees and cars and people and buildings. Given a microscope, we can focus on much smaller realities, on bacteria and cells and such. As I understand it, scientists have not found an absolute end in this direction—more powerful tools help humans see ever smaller parts and particles. Similarly, given a telescope, we can focus on much bigger realities, on stars and planets and galaxies. Our most powerful tools have not found the limit of the cosmos, but instead reveal ever greater horizons.
So as we walk along the street, focusing on trees and cars and other people, we occupy one small strata of an enormous continuum, stretching from microbes to galaxies. It can be awe-inspiring to look up at the stars and recognize ourselves as a tiny element of a vast cosmos. It can, in different ways, help us see our own size more clearly. Stargazing can shift our sense of scale.
In prayer, we put ourselves in intentional relationship with God, whose reality dwarfs the universe and undergirds electrons. God is bigger than the cosmos and smaller than the tiniest particle yet discovered. God is the Creator of the whole continuum. We bring our present conditions, our painful pasts, and our dreams for the future before God eternal, Creator of time itself. Concerned as we are with the minutiae of our own daily lives, we benefit from stepping back to allow our view to include both the small details and the God of all Creation. Prayer involves bringing ourselves and our concerns before the Holy, the mystery of the Universe that holds all things together. This can shift our sense of scale and give us a different perspective on our own realities.
Such a shift does not simply make us insignificant. We already affirm in praying the belief that God cares for us—each and every one. Rather, it emphasizes that we are part of something more expansive than ourselves and that our advocate in all of this, God, is more expansive still. Such a shift of scale does not negate our experiences of pain and suffering. However, these experiences are placed within a larger context that is, we affirm, concerned with our well-being. Prayer assures us that we do not face the difficulties of life on our own. The Holy, God, the Universe—whatever name we choose—desires goodness, moves
