Thoughts on Lent?

god said he was going out to the desert for a few weeks and i'd hate for him to go alone

i've grown up in quite a secular family, never went to church etc, and only in the past couple of years started celebrating serbian orthodox christmas with my mum where we attend part of the christmas eve mass. i want to get to know christianity a little better, and i know ur lutheran and not orthodox but i was wondering if u have any tips for just. starting somewehere? it feels very strange to sit down and think "Im Going To Pray" when ive neither done it nor seen anyone do it before, but i want to explore a bit, if that makes sense. your blog is very nice and calming i feel like you might have some insight :)

Welcome, beloved!

Prayer is quite strange sometimes and Sitting Down and Doing It does not come easily to most, especially if you didn't grow up doing that. I'm honored to be asked and I have a few thoughts.

At some point as a kid I was taught the acronym ACTS—Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication. I was told a prayer should contain these elements. And I don't technically disagree; I think those are all good necessary things. If you want a formula, there's a formula. But I always found "I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time- waking and sleeping" a much more real description of prayer.

We're told to pray always, without ceasing—prayer is something to bring with us. It is to be in relation with the God who is Love, who knows our suffering, and who hears. To pray is to be heard—and to listen in return, even if what we receive may be holy silence. 

Mass is a prayer, one the Church does together. Liturgy is where I learned most of the prayers I say, where I first chanted the psalms. I learned to read in church. Even once a year, it shows us many parts of prayer—it fulfills the acronym, sure, but attending services has shown me that prayer can be somber, joyful, certain, wondering, penitent, musical, silent. We can also think of things prayer can be that we don't want to replicate—Jesus talks about hypocritical ways of praying, of calling attention to oneself, of "heaping up empty phrases."

It doesn't always look like Sitting Down. There are not always words. I sit down (or lie down, depending) and pray at certain times—this was a hard-won habit, that still doesn't come easy—but it's easier for me to use my own words in the woods.. You can be anywhere, and be doing anything. You don't have to commit to a form—do it a little bit differently each time. Ask a question. Confess something. Picture someone you love in your mind, and feel that love. Look at each person on the subway and wish something for them. Set a timer on your phone to spend five minutes tentatively thinking about God—this is a prayer that can be more deeply felt than all the books in the world.

Whatever strangeness or embarrassment there is in addressing an unseen being, in coming to the Universe with your one quiet voice, it is the strange embarrassment of caring, of attempting what seems impossible, of being earnest about this whole being alive thing. The uncertainty of a new relationship, the doubt of whether it all matters, the unfamiliarity of learning a new skill. But you can do strange things, new things, vulnerable things. Love is continuing movement, and each step takes more bravery. You need communication with Love to live in it. 

Of course there are countless people who do not purposefully pray and yet show more love than I could ever hope to. God has met many, and sustained many, without their ever asking, sometimes without them ever knowing his name. But the asking is another kind of love, and I am one of the many who devote myself to even slight knowledge of his face. You have all you need to join me—because you have God.

The need that flows out of you, all the time—the draw you feel to start—is a prayer already. Really, there is no start—only a joining of a current already in motion. A dipping into a well that never runs dry. Others have the words, if you don't. I learn the psalms because, for all my poetry, I can't say it all, and never as perfectly as they do—and because it's a connection with centuries of voices. The practicing of the divine hours is another connection.

But really, putting aside the walks in the woods and the going to church more and the acronyms and the metaphors—how do you pray on purpose? Ultimately, there is no better answer than the one Jesus gave: Go into your room, shut the door, and (without an earthly audience, without looking a certain way or believing a certain thing) pray to the secret, listening God, in whatever language/version you have,

You've never done it or seen it before, sure, but it's built into you, to need this. Once you've done it, you will have seen it. Once you've seen it, I expect you'll realize you have done it before, without noticing. You don't have the words, so they have been given to you. You don't have to believe wholeheartedly each word—that comes later for those of us who grow up in it, and it can come later for you, too. Start in the somewhere you have been placed. 

The first thing we learn how to ask for as babies is the result of every prayer: being heard. So cry out.

<3 Johanna