Safe at the foot of the fuzzy cross

Like the disciples, I often have no idea how to pray. I don’t know what to ask for, I don’t know how long to keep asking, I don’t know if I am doing it right, I don’t know how it all really works. That doesn’t sound very pastoral, I know. What can I say? I suppose I am, at least, in decent (or at least populous) company when I say that prayer is often very hard for me.

What does one do, after all, with the sheer weight of sadness and longing and confusion that so many must carry? What does one do with big, ugly, terrifying words such as “Alzheimer’s,” “cancer,” divorce,” “depression,” “loneliness,” “rejection,” or “suicide”? What does one do with phrases like “and that’s when we stopped speaking to one another” and “we just don’t know where the money will come from” and “I miss her terribly” and “we’re going to have to do another test, another procedure?” What does one do with all of the tertiary pain that ripples out from the human stories where these words find their origin? There are only so many ways to say, “God, would you please make all the bad stuff stop and give us some more of the good stuff please?”

For the last few years, I have adopted a somewhat involuntary Tuesday morning tradition. I walk into my office and begin to sift through the evidence of my kids’ latest visit. Being pastor’s kids, they have to stay longer after church than they would like. So, they often just hang out in my office, drawing, crafting, cutting, gluing, rearranging, creating paper airplanes, preparing notes and other surprises for dad, and generally leaving the place looking like a hurricane blew through it.