Ship of Fools: Praying when you can't

Thread: Praying when you can't Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

The title says it. I find myself automatically, from habit, saying prayers I know, with caveats. Like "bless and protect us, except you don't". or "Be with me O Lord, except you're not". I am carrying a sense of betrayal with this, where God or the world or both has decided to lay on with the smiting. How does one even begin to pray when it seems meaningless, that words may be heard by others, but God does not hear. (I've stepped back from lay assisting at eucharist, from lay reading, leading prayers, and my spouse cannot even bring herself to attend church because of this situation.)

I'm not naive enough to think that others have not been in this situation. I'd be grateful to understand what others may have experienced to see if there might be a bit of a map I might derive.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

That is prayer, and pretty honest prayer too.

Sometimes when I'm too angry to pray I just sit down, say "I'm here" and basically glare at God in silence for half an hour or whatever. It seems to help sometimes.

Posted by comet (# 10353) on :

I'm with LC. only I cuss a blue streak and say horrible things. if there is a God, I'm pretty sure he understands. if there isn't a God, then it was at least therapeutic.

Sometimes, "This hurts, you motherfucker!" is the only prayer you can pull off. It works, too.

there's no tricks to this shit - you just have to slog through the mud. one day you look back and realize it's not quite as deep and sucking as it used to be.

It gets better.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

The thing worse than an angry or negative prayer would be a dishonest prayer. And worse than that would be no prayer at all.

God knows I've been in the latter situation often enough, and had to work back to the first two stages.

Posted by Mary LA (# 17040) on :

After the suicide of my mother, I found myself frozen and numb, not even able to feel anger. Prayer seemed impossible.

A friend gave me a volume of Thomas Merton's journal, Entering into Silence, originally published as The Sign of Jonas, in which Merton details his own struggle with doubt and darkness, writing about "the hour when prayer becomes impossible and your heart has turned to stone". That made me feel less alone.

Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :

{{{{{no prophet}}}}}

Good advice from the previous posters.

A couple of ideas:

--Do you have any place you can go where you can safely yell out loud at God, without someone calling the cops and/or an ambulance? Sometimes, that can help a lot.

--Sometimes, the best thing you can do for your faith is to take some time off.

--I read an anecdote about a young man whose mother had just died. A priest was trying to help him. The young man was glaring at a crucifix that was on the wall. The priest quietly told him, "Do what you need to do". The young man took the cross off the wall and bashed it to bits, then cried in the priest's arms.

--I have a little book called "May I Hate God?". Don't remember who wrote it. IIRC, I found it helpful.

There's also "Woman's Book of Spiritual Renewal". (I think I have that right; please double-check the book list in my profile.) It's not specifically Christian. It's especially for women who are in spiritual upheaval, and trying to figure out what to do. (I think guys could get good from it, too.)

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :

Have a look at Psalm 74.

Jengie

Posted by Janine (# 3337) on :

There's no law that a prayer even has to have words, much less pretty words. Sometimes I'm lucky if I can work up cooperation with the "groanings too deep for words".

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

This thread in Limbo speaks volumes

Moo

Posted by Enigma (# 16158) on :

When you can't pray - just be among those who can and do and take hugs from them. God loves you and just hang on to that because that is a fact not just a feeling.
[Votive]

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

I'm not actually feeling angry these days. Done with that. God did not kill me when I asked him to, in exchange for making things different. Rather, it's betrayal. This about 13 months old now. It seems to have gelled.

I've been through the psalms backward and forward. The Limbo thread is helpful. They are about the only relevant bible bits it seems. Several well meaning and good priests, several psychologists. All helpful in their way. It stops at some points. I graduated from chopping wood with an axe to clearing fallen post-tornado trees. Been sailing to the edge of tipping the boat - the keel doesn't allow it though, the wind gets dumped off the sails and it rights itself. Baking bread. These are good 'in the moment' activities, but shortly afterward, the ennui.

My stream of consciousness runs along these lines:
Thoughts of God needing to confess his sins. Feeling I understand much less than I would have 1½ years ago. Feeling harmed spiritually by God. Interested in whether I'll ever get to ask the direct question of God, "how did you feel while you watched Jesus tortured to death?". Wondering if God is a narcissist, given that praying for and about things - intercession & petition - seems bankrupt, so all that's left is praise, but God does not seem praiseworthy. God as a "?"

Thus, I'm just doing the routine. Thinking, doing by rote and habit. Maybe that's all there is, until the festering wound that is becoming a scar fades some?

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :

Not really my readings this morning were:

Psalm 51, Psalm 74, Jeremiah 14 and 15 and Mark 11, try it, It certainly does not paint a rosy picture of the life of faith. Actually so far with Jeremiah, I am surprised he has any time left for God.

Jengie

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

God's big enough to take it. I'm sure he's heard it all before, from millions of other people, and respects you for being honest.

I've found it helpful during difficult times to keep the pattern and structure of the liturgy going until I come out the other side. But others have said, in similar circumstances, that they find it helpful to take a break. I guess everyone has to make the decision that best suits themselves. Whichever you do, I wish you the best.

Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on :

(((no prophet)))

I can't really add to what others have said.

I don't think you should let your inability to pray become one more stressor. Let us have that burden, we'll carry it for you.

Honest prayers are very good; and if you can't pray, that's an honest prayer too.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
I've found it helpful during difficult times to keep the pattern and structure of the liturgy going until I come out the other side.

The first part of this sentence - doing the routine - it seems to be enough of a habit that I do it. Though I don't mean it.

The second part, not sure what the other side is. Death? Seeing as I expect to live to my mid-80s, that's a long time to wait.

Posted by Eleanor Jane (# 13102) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
This thread in Limbo speaks volumes

Moo

Golly! Some cracking thoughts there...

My thoughts in response to the thread: I'm slowly edging round to the idea that most of my assumptions are wrong i.e. God isn't what I think She/He might be like, life doesn't work how I want it to work or think it works...

I've no idea what I'm edging towards and oh my G-d it's going to be a loooong and painful trip! Then of course, something else will knock me off my perch and put me a spin.

It reminds me a bit of Aslan ripping the layers of dragon skin off Eustace. But unlike Eustace, I didn't volunteer!

Anyway, I can pray, so [Votive]

for those who need them.

Cheers,
Eleanorjane

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

In my experience it takes much longer to heal from experiences of betrayal than from anything else. You're talking about years. But (again, in my experience--ymmv) it DOES eventually heal, if I can refrain as much as possible from picking* at it and just let the wound drain. And drain, and drain...

Sorry for disgusting image, but that is how betrayal appears to me. And I have had more of it than I ever want to see ever ever ever again.

It seems to me that I "pick at it" when I deliberately sit down to ruminate over it, even to luxuriate perversely in it. (Yes, I know I'm a sick puppy.)

But just having it coming into my thoughts again and again and again is not picking, it's part of the normal draining and eventually healing process. Which leaves a whacking great scar, but that beats an open wound any day.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Eleanor Jane:

It reminds me a bit of Aslan ripping the layers of dragon skin off Eustace. But unlike Eustace, I didn't volunteer!

(If I get tedious about things in this thread, please just tell me to stop. Here I go again.)

I so wish it was like that Eustace story. It seems our situation is more like Aslan ripping the skin off Reepicheep or Lucy, but not as dragons, rather as what they already are. And I have to watch. "Do me instead" I said, and he told me to F--- Right Off. With the point being that Aslan wanted to create the experience of pain for the sake of pain like a child pulling the legs or wings off an insect. Or maybe for some obscure reason known or amusing only to God and some obscene heavenly audience of fanged angels. As if God holds out a bloody axe and says 'look what I can do', and you're supposed to applaud the tyrant or he'll chop you too. He flies about in lofty places, stirring up tornadoes on earth, chattering to God knows who - others of importance - while ignoring many of us ignorables. Well maybe I'm grateful for quiet darkness, avoiding his attention: just leave us alone, you've already messed it up enough while breaking your promises. You have betrayed me, my family and as I see clearly now amid the horrible honest clarity, about all of us.

[ 16. August 2012, 02:32: Message edited by: no prophet ]

Posted by Enigma (# 16158) on :

(((No prophet)))
My only thought in your situation is....understanding God is the journey of a lifetime. Hang in there.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

CS Lewis makes me mad today. He wrote in Screwtape that continuing to follow and do even when there is no evidence that God even exists is about the happiest thing for God. I am paraphrasing Lewis for sure, but I woke a 1:30 a.m. with startle and had two CS Lewis thoughts (other one here. As if he came and haunted my dreams last night. The thoughts were preceded by a bright red light that jumped me awake with heart racing. Crazy I must be or was.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

Sounds like some of my PTSD experiences. Not crazy. Normal.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Sounds like some of my PTSD experiences. Not crazy. Normal.

Yes, you are right. I have revisited 1975-76 many times over the past year. That hope-to-forget time whose feelings rhyme with today's. This seemed a little different as it was not just terror, fear, anger nor anxiety, as if I was supposed damn well pay attention and aim the spotlight of my thoughts slightly left or right. I'm apparently a little resistant still to doing so, so says my multicoloured debriefings today amid day of sun, excellent and fair, which pissed me off a little - the sun I mean. So maybe I do harbour significantly more anger at the betrayal than I admit. I didn't mean to spread my therapy across the ship or in this thread, but I suppose I doing it anyway.

Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :

When my father was dying, I stopped praying for a while. It wasn't that I stopped believing in God. I wasn't even angry with him. I just didn't believe he could do anything, and that made him irrelevant.

My sister got much comfort out of the thought that God knew what it was to be human, and had suffered death too, on the cross. That didn't help me, though. Because it made no difference.

I remember how, at the time, I once burst into tears on the bus because an old and very frail man had climbed in the door. The utter irredeemable pity of being human struck me then as at no other time. How there really is no point to life or love when it all comes in the end to this frail helplessness.

My father died. Time passed. Six months later I started training for church ministry: still believing in God, still not believing that God could do anything. But by then, I had come to think about that moment on the bus as a kind of strange unwanted gift. I understand it now as a kind of incarnation in the opposite direction. That if God knew what it was like to be human (so what?), then for a brief blinding moment I had known what it was like to be God. To see this irredeemable human frailty, and to love so intensely that the pain and humiliation of that frailty becomes your own pain and humiliation. Including the pain and humiliation of not being able to do anything about it.

I am still not sure where this is taking me. Maybe something about redemption being about pity for the irredeemable. I don't think I have ever been more intensely human than in that moment of helpless pity for that frail old man. I did not want that gift, but it is mine now.

Sometimes blessings come as the ordinary stuff of life: children, friends, good food, warm hearths. Sometimes they come as strange gifts: glimpses into the being of God that terrify and overwhelm us; moments of beauty that infuriate us because they seem to mock our pain, and infuriate us again, because they are so transient. "Mary," said Jesus, speaking our name, and then he said, "Do not cling to me."

I believe there is joy waiting. I believe that as resurrection can only happen after death, that we have to wait until death for full redemption. (Though we have many smaller deaths before we die, and perhaps many smaller resurrections.) That old man is probably dead now, and I believe that he is young and strong with God. And that part of his joy in his full redemption is to look down on me in my irredeemable frailty, and pity me, and be human with me.

I pray for the return of your hope, no prophet.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
I didn't mean to spread my therapy across the ship or in this thread, but I suppose I doing it anyway.

Don't we all? [Biased]

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
I didn't mean to spread my therapy across the ship or in this thread, but I suppose I doing it anyway.
Don't we all?

You made me laugh very hard. Very good therapy. Thanks! [Killing me]

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
CS Lewis makes me mad today. He wrote in Screwtape that continuing to follow and do even when there is no evidence that God even exists is about the happiest thing for God.

He also wrote a grief observed and you might find it rings more true than the Screwtape letters at this point. Personally I found it very insightful about real-life experience rather than the more theoretical notions in his other books.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

Cottontail, I find your words moving. Md1jon, your suggestion is a good one, and it is probably more relevant. Death has been a little easier to deal with; had 5 in the last 3 years, 4 of family members and my closest friend.

This situation was an attack on an innocent, right after what was our morning custom of prayers for protection for the day. I find it impossible to believe that such a prayer has any effect on God or that God wishes to intervene on our behalf. The other alternative with God, which seems nonsensical, is that God has decided he dislikes me and mine. I went through a parallel in the mid-1970s, and it seems that it was far easier, perhaps because I was younger and without family, and certainly because the violence was personal to me.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
I find it impossible to believe that such a prayer has any effect on God or that God wishes to intervene on our behalf. The other alternative with God, which seems nonsensical, is that God has decided he dislikes me and mine.

That sounds very close to the thoughts that Lewis describes in a grief observed. He comes to a resolution, I think, but not an intellectual one. There is no final chapter that makes sense of it all. Which is my experience also. In fact, a final triumphant "and the answer is..." would only cheapen the struggle to my mind.

I had a Jewish friend who told me his group observed a tradition where the recently bereaved were, in certain circumstances, exempted from public prayers on the basis that they couldn't possibly be expected to have anything suitable for public eavesdropping to say to God at that time.

Posted by Nenya (# 16427) on :

What you're going through sounds absolutely terrible. I'm so sorry.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

Thank you to those of have posted. Your kindness to me, a stranger on the ship of fools is gratefully received.

She decided to go to church on this past Sunday. The second time with her in more than a year. Not sure her reasons and not sure she knows them either. I've been going once or twice per month just to be (childishly) in God's face: present and not going away and here I am thoughts. This is the first time since the incident that I haven't had to control my tears in church. Strangely I almost missed them.

Now it has fallen together that I'm going to a northern lake cabin on this coming weekend with my nearly blind elderly father, springing him from assisted living. He neglected to inform that he has cancer until Sunday evening, sparing us he thought, the silly bunt. Our ancient lame dog who has thus far survived cancer will also come. Laughing and crying and the absurd irony of all of this. Tea and bannock is a Canadian communion when in the bush, that's the only plan I have. I wish we had the slightest idea what was going on these days.

Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
...I wish we had the slightest idea what was going on these days.

As far as I can recall I have had that wish for most of the last 63+ years!

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

Oh hell. I'm so sorry, this on top of everything else.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

I had several nice arguments with him as it poured rain (I think it was 3"). Cold as well. Lots of very good tea, I baked some bread and made a curry which he likes. He's to get a yard of his intestines removed and then we'll see. He has been useless as a grandparent to my now grown children, but it seems he wants to use the time now to clear up some old, stale thoughts and troubles. It is a strange distraction from the other mess.

Does anyone have any idea of whether we get a personal interview with the Heavenly Producer of this farce of a play? I want a long one frankly. I have ever so many questions and, I think, crying and weeping and gnashing of my teeth to do. I will be dismayed if I'm not allowed at least some tears and ranting, for a least a wee bit of eternity.

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