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I have a good friend in England who is reading my book as his Lenten devotionals. I appreciate that. He's a deep thinker, a globally minded man who probes both small things yet thinks universally.

Recently, as part of an ongoing dialogue about things he may or may not agree with in the book, he about why I suggested that canned prayers don't lead to great personal spiritual depth. In the book I compare such systematic prayer practices to telling Barbara I love her versus an exclusive diet of Browning poems. The poems may work well on occasion, but if they are all I can muster, she may begin to wonder if I have my own feelings for her.
I also say that a scribbled home made Father's Day card from my grandsons, Isaac or Will, is far better to me than the most beautiful Hallmark card. Nothing against Hallmark at all, but that piece of colorful paper from them may hang on my wall for years. Brennan Manning says “A little child can not do a bad coloring; nor can a child of God do a bad prayer.”  

So, this morning while praying, I thought about my friend, Alan, and want to offer the following thoughts:



1) Prayer must be most of all a personal expression from me to my Maker. It doesn't have to be formal, poetic, profound or even logical, just as long as it's honest, honoring and humble. Since the Spirit makes intercession on our behalf, sometimes a simple groan or a one word prayer is enough to do the trick. (I especially enjoy the way I have fun with this process in the book.)



2) Prayer must always have a context. I believe that the focus of today's urgent need often provides all the context we need to pray purposefully. Sometimes, however, we have no urgent need and the microscope that moves us to pray with urgency becomes a telescope that causes us to simply ponder. The further away the moment is from urgent, the more we tend to wander and need some form of contextual structure.



3) "Canned" prayers and prayer structures/systems often provide such context. I say in the book that we often feel like sailors who hit the doldrums and have no wind to move the ship so they have to get down and row until the wind returns. Using the words of others or following closely to a liturgical prayer system is fine when it's needed, but, it's not the best for developing an ongoing personal relationship with the Almighty.


I included a number of prayer systems in the book's appendices, including one of my own that I call "A Cognitive Approach To Praying." There's also reference to the ancient system called Lectio Divina, and the system used by St. John of the Cross to prime the pump when his spiritual experience got dry. 

A good way to think of prayer systems is that they provide a framework for us to speak our minds and open our hearts to God. If, however, they dictate everything we say, they can become crutches that lead to ritual, not relationship.



I hope this stirs some good thoughts.
Jack