When I was nine, I was shot in the eye with a BB and blinded. I was visiting a friend more than two miles uphill from my house, and had to ride home on my bicycle, one eye showing nothing but red. I was a dutiful Catholic boy at the time, often talking in my head to God, and as I rode on that cold late-winter day down the hills, I prayed, “God, if I am going to go blind in that eye, have a car kill me now.” Stoic in its way, I suppose, and deeply pathetic, but we allow such things for children. As it turned out, my prayer was answered – I did not go blind, and so was not killed by a car. Or at least I could see it that way.
Not many years later, as I was reveling in the blinding joy of being a Baby Boomer in the late ‘60s, I listened to the good rock – the stuff they played off of albums on college and bootleg FM stations – with the attention of an enthralled believer at a Billy Graham revival. The words of the singers were considered deep or even prophetic, especially for such acts as The Grateful Dead or The Doors. With the latter there was one phrase that really struck me, words written and sung by master showman Jim Morrison: “You cannot petition the Lord with prayer.” “Really?” I thought. That broke with everything I knew about the Master Planner. It gave this 14-year-old a tough decision to make: believe in The Doors, or in Jesus Christ, who Himself said that if we pray for what we need ceaselessly, the Father will answer.
That, too – the deification of rock lyrics – is pathetic and less excusable at that later age, but I can at least say that Jesus won the decision. I continued to pray for things that were probably not good for me at the time, or that I was approaching all wrong, and continually did NOT get what I prayed for, which never presented itself as a problem. In my mind, my life was not my own, but in the hands of the all-perfect and all-loving God. I would let him know of my needs - he did already, but just in case to show my enthusiasm- and he would do the rest.
I have to say that I have received a good portion of what I prayed for after the passage of much time, but have also been disappointed in many other things. Still, sometimes it seems as though my desires are instantly gratified by prayer, so much so that it is a little frightening. I know damn well that I am an egotist, and in holier modes know that it is usually for the better that I do NOT get what I want. Losing an eye, after all, would have been preferable to death, at least as far as my parents were concerned. And so I try to pray now more in gratitude, and for wisdom.
But prayer – what is it? In a book mentioned in the previous essay, Notes from the Underground by Fr Donald Cozzens, the author poses this situation regarding prayer: Let’s imagine that God hears our prayer to save Aunt Rosie from dying, and then says to himself, “Gee, I was going to take her life today, but you all have prayed so hard that I’ll give her a few more years.” Put in that context, Jim Morrison turns out to be the prophet I thought he was. Yes, it is ridiculous to think that you can petition the Lord with prayer. His mind, after all, was made up from the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.
That is not the end of it, however. Cozzens brings another vector into this age-old debate: willfulness vs. willingness. Willfulness means having it our way. It means getting the hot babe we want at 16, the Ivy League college we want at 18, and the high-roller job we want at 22. It means perpetual health, high times, vacations in the Caribbean, perfect children who also attend the right schools and marry the perfect mates, and a soft and beautiful death. On the other hand, willingness means going with God’s flow, accepting what is given and moving on to other things in faith and gratitude. It means working at what we think we want, but accepting what we get and adapting to the new circumstances. Cozzens uses the example of the “flow” of the athlete, how he strives for certain results, but relies on harmony rather than excessive effort to get him there. It is exactly what the Zen archer does when concentrating on the bullseye, determined but not anxious about the result. He lets the arrow fly, relying on his decision that hitting the target is the correct action to take in the moment. If he misses, that is OK too, for it was not meant to be. He has intent and desire, but does not try to force the results against the ‘Will of Heaven,’ as the Eastern religions often put it.
Obviously, what that means for prayer is to have the intent – to pray for the result – but to accept the result without bitterness or excessive disappointment. It might be that ‘now’ is not the right time, or that more time it needed to rethink the desire. Maybe in that interval a better alternative will show.
But there is something more in this, and greater. Cozzens quotes the great philosopher Soren Kierkegaard to nail this down: “Prayer does not change God but changes him who prays.” That is, it is not the physical results that matter with prayer, but what happens to the person who is praying. Touching the spiritual helps one get into the flow, directing one towards proper outcomes rather than towards immediate “willful” ones. With this in mind, we might not try to redirect God to give Aunt Rosie another few years, but rather, be directed by meditation in prayer to wish for Aunt Rosie’s comfort and salvation in her allotted time. Or, we might pray for Aunt Rosie to live for a few years longer, but accept the results with grace and humility. Either way, we are going with the will of God, diving deeper into the cosmic flow.
There is even more; while prayer might help us to have faith, it also brings us to greater integrity and personal authenticity. The authentic person does not need to impress others or himself, and so does not need those things that the everyday self often prays for, for those things that it does not get, or does get but often without the imagined satisfaction. The authentic self needs nothing more in this world than its immediate physical needs. In the space of silence and solitude in which our more authentic, prayerful self exists, we no longer long with ordinary exterior values; we no longer have the pressing need to willfully move God to comply with our worldly desires. Rather, we come to appreciate more the closer relationship with God that is found in deep prayer and reverent silence. While we might still plead for Aunt Rosie and others out of compassion, prayer that is willing rather than willful takes us out of our egoistic self, to an inner solitude that allows God to be.
What is the answer, then: can we petition the Lord with prayer? Cozzens might agree with Morrison that we cannot, not in the way we often think. In the final analysis, we might never know. However, as prayer focuses our attention on the subject at hand, it also takes our focus away from the simple agency of the self. In this, we are allowed to free ourselves from the rat race of social climbing and of constant motion as we delve within to a quieter, calmer, and often wiser awareness. In this, we bring greater peace into the world; in this, we change the world for the better; and in this, we get closer to whatever we are wishing for, for all wishes eventually are meant to make us happier.
So, go ahead, Jim, and petition the Lord from that island you share with Elvis and Jimmy Hendrix. You might not get what you ask for, but if you try sometime/ you just might find/ you get what you need.
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