Do You Still Pray?

What happens to prayer after you rethink religion and spirituality? Does it feel empty, confusing, or even impossible? If so, you're not alone.

In this episode, the three of us discuss our journeys from structured, wordy, and sometimes demonstrative prayer lives to something altogether different. Randy reflects on his charismatic past where intercessory prayer dominated his spiritual practice, Kyle raises philosophical questions about whether prayer "works" in a traditional sense and shares his current discomfort with it, and Elliot shares what about prayer still seems to fit—and what doesn't—through the experience of deconstruction.

We wrestle with the extent to which we should think of prayer as affecting the world, God, or ourselves. We visit the thoughts of some influential thinkers on prayer. And we question the transactional and manipulative views of our old traditions while trying to remain generous with our past selves.

What do we make of Jesus's promises about prayer's power alongside his own unanswered prayer in Gethsemane? What about contemplative alternatives to petitionary prayer, and are they really different from meditation? Can we name the grief that comes with losing certain prayer practices while also discovering new, more life-giving ones?

Wherever you are on prayer these days, we hope this conversation offers companionship for the journey and permission to find your own path forward. Prayer may not be what it once was, and that's okay.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Prayer's Place in Deconstruction
• 9:15 How Prayer Has Evolved in Our Journeys
• 22:32 Discomfort with Traditional Intercessory Prayer
• 33:45 Philosophical Questions About Prayer
• 42:33 Prayer as Contemplative Practice
• 55:56 Moving from Words to Presence
• 1:09:09 Finding New Ways to Pray After Deconstruction

Transcript

Randy: 0:06

I'm Randy, the pastor, half of the podcast, and my friend Kyle's a philosopher. This podcast hosts conversations at the intersection of philosophy, theology and spirituality.

Kyle: 0:15

We also invite experts to join us, making public a space that we've often enjoyed off-air, around the proverbial table with a good drink in the back corner of a dark pub.

Randy: 0:24

Thanks for joining us and welcome to A Pastor and a Philosopher. Walk into a Bar. Many of us, or most of us, are Christians who are deconstructing I would say probably even though we're disgusted by that word and really annoyed, and it's over. Many of us are trying to figure out what our faith looks like, what our spirituality looks like, and one of those things that I think many of us are trying to figure out and trying to understand, trying to see how it works into our lives anymore if it works into our lives anymore is this idea of prayer, and some of us, I would say, maybe got catapulted into a season of deconstruction or questioning our faith or questioning God because of the reality of prayer and what it feels like and what it has become for us. That has just kind of dried up and become this desert in our spirituality and we don't know what to do with it and maybe that kind of catapulted us into questioning more things, or maybe prayer was the fourth or fifth or sixth thing.

Randy: 1:31

But for many of us and I'm interested to hear from you guys prayer is an issue. Prayer is something that's kind of a roadblock. There's a feels like a dead end for many of us and it causes us to question many things. What has your guys, elliot and Kyle, as your spirituality has evolved and changed and grown or shrunk or whatever? How has prayer played a role in that journey? Where are you now with prayer?

Elliot: 2:03

Prayer is actually one of those things that stayed pretty constant, not in terms of like feeling, like I know how to do it, but in terms of it feeling like something that it always fits. It's always fit the structure of what I understand faith and God to be. It's just, it's super compatible, even as theology has changed, even as guilt and shame has fallen away, and like, maybe with that, even some of the, at times, spiritual practices, the daily devotionals, like those things that felt like they were just a bit more the trappings, at least in my experience, my mindset, least in my experience, my mindset. Prayer, though, has been, it just makes sense that a God who is involved and who seeks relationship, like that, that would be a conversation and so, in whatever ways, like I'm not good at how that plays out, but it's always felt like a really valuable thing, something that I want to find and grow in.

Randy: 3:06

And is that where that way you think about prayer, the way you practice it currently, or is that just historically, it's been something that's really essential and has never really gone away, even though some of the quiet times and devotional practices may have.

Elliot: 3:19

Well, let me be clear, it's not that I feel full in the way that I practice prayer. That's actually been a real struggle. Well, let me be clear, it's not that I feel full in the way that I practice prayer Like that.

Elliot: 3:31

That's actually been a real struggle. It's just that in in the ways that I've been okay to kind of let go of all of the all the other spiritual practices and just like kind of float a little bit or or just not be sure what I think of whatever theological idea. Uh, prayer has just always felt like something that it's like, yeah, that's a that makes sense in my faith currently, that that God would want to be hearing from me and that that I would like be free to engage with God in that way. So, no, it's. It's not that I'm actually satisfied with how I practice prayer. It's more, the idea of prayer has never felt in dissonance in the way that other aspects of my belief system have and have evolved.

Elliot: 4:15

Okay.

Kyle: 4:17

Yeah, that's really interesting. I want to hear more from both of you about what your prayer life looks like now, post-deconstruction, because mine has basically died, as you probably won't be surprised to learn. No, yeah, in some ways I feel like this conversation might be me just hearing how it could be better a little therapy session or something. So it's weird to think about how much I used to pray. I want to say it's died, not so much because of the deconstruction although there are aspects of that as much as just like life happening and like losing touch with certain liturgical forms, and not even just that, but like whole modes of culture that go along with being a church person and how prayer is done in that kind of space and not, I don't know, not coming real naturally to doing it in a different kind of way.

Kyle: 5:09

It's not that I don't know that there's a different kind of way to do it I do. It's just that that doesn't come easily to me and to fit it into my cultural whatever just the way I moved through the world would require an amount of effort that I so far have not put into it. All that said, I want to and I feel like it's an absence in my life. So I'm very curious to hear how it's different for you.

Kyle: 5:32

But I've had really dramatic, momentous, like you know, deeply spiritual, life-changing kind of prayer moments in my life and to think back on that now almost feels like a story that I read or something but it's just very different from the way I experienced the world and the way I experience God now, and I do think I still sometimes experience God, but in a very different way.

Randy: 5:55

And now when?

Kyle: 5:55

I try to pray. I don't even know what to do. To be totally honest with you, we're going to talk about some philosophical issues around prayer and theological questions and whatever, but I don't think it's because of any of that, I think I'm just. I'm just uncomfortable, it's like the best way I can describe it is. I had a good friend in college, like really good, close, close friend, and I went. I saw them years later. We'd completely lost touch and I happened to be in the town they lived in and we saw each other for like a dinner or something with other people. So it even like took some of the edge off the awkwardness, but it was just palpable how different we are.

Kyle: 6:33

Like there's still that connection, that love, that I want to make this connection with you in this moment, and we're both trying, but it's just odd, it feels strange, and that's kind of how I feel when I say dear God, the next moment is kind of like that what do we do now?

Randy: 6:52

Yeah, okay. So you said you've had countless I think you said momentous, impactful, life-changing moments in prayer times in prayer, and now you don't, and haven't probably for a while.

Randy: 7:06

And I think that's many of our stories, right, I would say very similar things. Now it's different for me because I'm a pastor in multiple ways. But how do you process that? How do you process the reality that I've had incredible life-giving, life-changing? Had incredible life-giving, life-changing, momentous. I can remember exactly, you know that moment in prayer and now you don't. Do you process that as that, as if, like, that was a figment of your imagination, or is that something that, like, is a part of the, the divine that you just really don't tap into anymore? How do you process that?

Kyle: 7:42

process is an interesting word. That's like one of those psychology words sorry. Sorry, like I can, I can rationalize it, if you want I can rationalize it real easy, but I probably don't process it if by that you mean like come to some kind of terms with it where I'm like, comfortable with its place in my life I mean, how do you understand it?

Kyle: 8:00

yeah, no, I think I'll. I mean, I I'm, you know, I'm still doing this, I'm still a Christian. I think that was real. I think I encountered a real thing, particularly in a couple of times that really stick in my brain and I know there are other times that kind of fade you know the power of them fades but a couple still stick out as, like you know, that was almost physical, that kind of thing and actually I believe it was physical but you know what I?

Kyle: 8:26

mean Like God was there. And if that was fake, then I have to question a lot of all or not fake. But if that was somehow I don't know a delusion or something, then lots of my other perceptual experiences are also in question. Sure, so like I don't have any philosophical qualms about it at all, but it yeah, and I think that's why it presents itself to me as kind of a an absence of a friendship. God, I doubt my friend's existence. He's right there in front of me yeah, yeah, it's just we don't.

Kyle: 8:59

They're part of what that was, and I think why it seems familiar to me in that way is there's stuff beneath the surface that you know both of you are thinking about and neither of you wants to bring up in that moment. So maybe we'll come back to some of that later in this conversation.

Randy: 9:14

Well, I'm sure, listeners, you know exactly what we're talking about to different degrees. All three of us have different perspectives and different experiences in our past with prayer and also currently in what our prayer life does or doesn't look like. But let's talk about prayer, let's have a conversation. I'd love to just begin with. You know you were talking about your past experiences and I've got so many past experiences that were just full of just super I would have said supernaturally charged times of prayer where you, just like you said, you feel the presence of the divine, you feel the spirit, you feel the movement. All the things are happening. How did we understand, how did you understand prayer? You know, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, what was when we talked about prayer? When you have talked about prayer, if I would have asked you what is prayer, about prayer, when you have talked about prayer, if I would have asked you what is prayer, what would you have said?

Elliot: 10:09

I think back then it was. It was really structured like often, with the, the pithy acronyms to help you remember all the parts you're supposed to say it always starts with dear jesus, uh, or dear god, and then ends with in jesus name I love the how the people certain people would always have their like pet phrases.

Kyle: 10:25

You know, father God there's always a father God people you know or daddy God with the really spiritual ones, where daddy God's how you knew that one hurts Because you did that. Because I knew people that did that.

Elliot: 10:35

Even then it hurt. I remember like some of my first expressions of Christian rebellion would be like if I skipped the in Jesus name around my family dinner table and just skipped right to amen.

Randy: 10:46

I've been told by people in my church years ago this person, I don't like it when they pray, because this, this pastor, because they don't say in Jesus name, oh wow, it's like holy, I've never like yeah.

Elliot: 10:59

I think I did I think I have been told like it's not that you, you don't have to say that part, it just works better when you do so. Yeah, uh, because the bible tells me so. It used to be a lot more structured and I think there was there was some of that that maybe took took what I've found to be the more beautiful parts of prayer out of it initially. So it, like most things early on, was a more of the formula like you're kind of conforming to the way that the people around me were doing it and it's been actually, as that structure has kind of fallen away and it's become a more quiet thing and a more fluid thing that it's felt more free.

Elliot: 11:42

But no, I don't actually resonate with some of the like you talk about the the really visceral, beautiful experiences of prayer. Uh, I can't think of any like. I don't. I don't know that I've had, like there have been great times of, of worship and I guess praying praying over people is often when it feels the most meaningful, whether that's in healing or in commissioning or whatever. But no, I think it's. For me it's been a graduation from the structured and regimented prayer to something that feels more free and conversational.

Randy: 12:21

Yep, and maybe that's. It's just a good example of like kyle and I have more charismatic backgrounds recently in the church you're more kind of straight down the middle evangelical yeah, in many ways, and so that makes sense from a very like scandinavian small like frozen chosen baby. Yeah, yeah, uh yeah, it's.

Elliot: 12:42

It's good to hear different perspectives.

Randy: 12:45

We all have different experiences and perspectives when it comes to prayer. How would you have answered if I asked you? You know you and I sat down for coffee. I can still remember the place in the conversation. Probably what, like 15 years ago, kyle, was it that long?

Kyle: 13:02

I think it was longer. Well, maybe it was that. Yeah, it was probably like 2012 or so.

Randy: 13:07

So when we're sitting in colectivo on lake michigan um having a conversation about greg boyd, who I've got a quote from greg greg boyd in the in the cooker, ready to go um what would you have told me?

Kyle: 13:18

prayers kyle I was still pretty pentecostal.

Randy: 13:21

I'm still pentecostal, but I was like very pentecostal you say that and it annoys the shit out of me every time Very different ways, though, of being Pentecostal. It annoys the shit out of me when you say you're still Pentecostal. I'm just kidding.

Kyle: 13:30

I think I set up that meeting because I wanted to make sure that you guys were okay with that kind of thing. I don't know what my actual questions were, but I wanted to be in a church. When I was looking back then, that, you know, left room for the Holy Spirit to do something unexpected in the service, and that if somebody had a you know a word from God or something, there was a way to deliver it, that was controlled and all that kind of stuff.

Kyle: 13:55

Yeah, it's interesting you said 10, 20, 30 years in the way that you framed the question initially and I'm thinking about, okay, well, 30 years ago I was eight years old. What was prayer like to me then? And I remember it very clearly actually, because it was about exactly that time that I was praying the sinner's prayer and I remember doing it probably four times like consecutive nights to make sure that I got it right. And I'm trying to think where I would have absorbed that from, because it didn't come from my church, because I went to like a kind of liberal denomination that didn't harp on that at all, denomination that didn't harp on that at all.

Kyle: 14:25

Prayer for them was this, you know congregational kind of thing that we did together and it was around the table and it was what I would consider now a pretty healthy view. But somehow I'd absorbed this idea that I'm going to hell if I don't say this string of words and I did it like four times so I could be confident and tell my parents that I'd been saved.

Kyle: 14:39

That was where I was at at eight. And then, you know, 10 years after that, I was at at eight, um. And then you know, 10 years after that, I was in high school or graduating high school, going to college, starting to get into this Pentecostal thing, out of this Southern Baptist thing that I'd been in, and, man, I don't know, I was a fundamentalist through and through that point Probably. I probably thought prayer was supposed to bring about the end times or something. I don't know what I was thinking.

Randy: 15:03

Niche. Good thing we weren't friends then, no.

Kyle: 15:08

And then the next time is probably like when you and I were getting to know each other. So, yeah, gosh, prayer is a weird thing for me, like there were moments and honestly, around 10 years ago it was probably one of them where I could point to a specific time of prayer, and by time I mean like a week period where some specific thing in my life dramatically changed because I set aside an amount of time to fast and pray with that goal in mind and it worked. At the end of that week my life was tangibly, measurably different in the way that I intended. That was about 10 years ago and now that just seems strange to me.

Randy: 15:44

I don't know. Yeah, it's so interesting how our ideas about these spiritual realities and spiritual practices that we think are so concrete and so clear just continue to change, continue to evolve. So intercessory prayer for me was the brand it was. You know, I didn't do the what's the acronym, the praise supplication at the.

Kyle: 16:08

You're the pastor man, I don't know. Yeah, Praise, adoration confession. Somebody. Many people who are listening know what I'm talking about A way of remembering all the different kinds.

Randy: 16:19

For me it was intercessory prayer and I mean I would get I loved. What does that mean? Intercessory prayer for me just means you're interceding on behalf of something or someone interceding on behalf. I'm praying for my city and for God to heal our city.

Randy: 16:35

I'm praying for this person to be healed. And we've talked about open theism a little bit with Tom Ord. But one thing that Greg Boyd does, who's a very, very prominent open theist, is he kind of uses the idea of open theism to say you should be an open theist because it makes prayer matter more. And here's a quote from Greg. He says prayer does certainly change us, but that's not why we're told to engage in it. We're commanded to engage in prayer because it is a God-ordained means of impacting him and changing the world. That's a strong statement right there.

Randy: 17:09

Jesus didn't say if we have faith and pray, our attitude towards mountains would change. He said the mountain would move. Prayer changes what happens in the world. Did you know that there are more if-then clauses associated with prayer in the Bible than any other single human activity? Clause is associated with prayer in the Bible than any other single human activity? For example, the Lord says if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves in prayer and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and heal their land. He then goes on to add now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.

Randy: 17:41

That's 2 Chronicles 7. Greg says the Lord is in effect saying I want to heal, I want to forgive you, but I'm waiting on you to humble yourselves and pray. That, to me, is the idea of intercessory prayer that I was fully bought in on for most of my Christian life. And I would have to say I mean like if I would say I don't believe in that anymore, I don't believe in swaths of the scripture, but I think it's much more nuanced than Boyd is bringing to us here. And I'm not. Can I say I'm a pastor, but I'm going to say this I'm not super comfortable with that take anymore.

Kyle: 18:16

Oh, really no why.

Randy: 18:21

Because I think and this isn't a developed thought, so forgive me, but I think that kind of attitude towards prayer that I've held for a long, long time and that I practiced for a long long time, it kind of turns prayer into a magic formula, magic potion, a magic incantation. It's this if I say the right words and I do the right thing and I have enough faith and I God's going to unlock things.

Elliot: 18:50

my prayers are going to unlock things and how would you start to take that apart though from from the standpoint of actually taking, like it might have that negative effect in the way that it has this view? Prayer, but but what piece of it do you think is wrong? That that it's not a way to change god, or that it's you know that that the if thens? In scripture aren't necessarily I mean as meaningful as as he's drawing them to be, or yeah, no, I'll say a couple risky things.

Randy: 19:30

I'm not sure if I fully believe that's how God works anymore. I do practice intercessory prayer. If a person in my church or in my family or anyone asks me to pray for them, I almost always try to. Family or anyone asks me to pray for them, I almost always try to. I'll, in that moment for sure, pray for them and then I'll I mean, I'll be driving and I'll, like just yesterday, I'm driving and I'm remembering a few people to just to hold them in prayer, asking God for certain things. And for me it doesn't feel any more like I am certain, or even very, very confident that my prayers are changing things for God. I think it's me holding that person in my heart, it's me holding them before God, it's me asking God for goodness and agreeing with God's heart already for that person.

Randy: 20:27

But do I pray expecting supernatural healing or power or radical changes in the world? Maybe, maybe, I don't know. I can't answer that I pray intercessory prayer style for and on behalf of others. Um, I don't know if I do it anymore, because I really, really think it's going to change things profoundly. I've been, I've prayed for people and like I've been in prayer situations where I've seen healings happen rarely, rarely, but I've seen it. I've felt sensations in prayer. I've felt what I thought was the presence of the divine in prayer, but that kind of prayer that Greg Boyd is talking about here, this intercessory prayer. I feel like that expectation and that belief in a God who is just waiting for us to cry out to God, to pray and to break things open in a city, in a place and I know there's some people listening who this might be pure blasphemy for me to say I just don't see it that way anymore.

Elliot: 21:37

Yeah, I share your discomfort with what that does. I mean, that's the part where somebody gets sick and then you have to find all of your people to pray and you know, she's got a lot of people praying for her and like, but apparently like it wasn't enough. Like maybe if it was 18 instead of 16, she would have been fine. Like it gets awkward.

Randy: 21:57

And I've been that person who's been prayed for by hundreds, if not thousands of people.

Randy: 22:00

I've had like a health emergency, where literally thousands of people around the world praying for me and I'm whole. So great praise the Lord. But I can tell you that affected me in ways that, like humbled me deeply, made me feel deeply connected to a larger community of people, some people that I didn't even know it did things in me and affected me, but I don't, I don't know if I would say I believe that like physical things in my body change because of it.

Elliot: 22:31

You kick out that leg of the stool and there better be something substantial to make prayer make sense after that Like to say like if that was kind of the whole thing in a lot of ways, intercessory prayer, it seems like you'd have to replace it with something substantial in the way that you view the value of prayer, or else it just gets knocked way down the list.

Kyle: 22:53

Yeah, there are a lot of other types. Maybe we should list them here in a minute, but that reminded me I hadn't thought about this in I don't know how long, but what you said reminded me. I once I remember sending. I had a friend who was ill and I remember sending probably a hundred emails to churches that I this was like the early days of Google and I just looked up churches and I figured every church has a prayer list so I'm going to put this person on their prayer list Because I thought the more people doing it the more likely this person will be healed.

Elliot: 23:20

I just forget, and I guess I've only known you as you kind of like came out of all of this like you every once in a while you say things that just go.

Kyle: 23:28

You were so deep, yeah, man yeah, and I mean I don't know part of me, I don't know part of me feels compassion for that kid.

Randy: 23:37

You know there's something good about that. I think I mean, that's what i's, what I just said out of hand kind of is like that's love and that's becoming a part of prayer. For me. It's not just this like desperate request from God to change reality. It's actually many, many things that are way less solid but, also in some ways more beautiful.

Randy: 24:09

Like to me a person who is going to Google a bunch of churches and send in their friend's name and ask for a prayer to a bunch of people that they have no idea who they are. That's just pure love right there. Yeah. And that is worthwhile and beautiful to me. And I'm not even saying that I don't believe prayer changes, that I don't believe prayer changes things I somehow still do, but I hold it in the greatest mystery that I probably hold anything in.

Kyle: 24:35

Yeah, is prayer. I'd like to talk to Greg about this. If anybody out there knows, greg Borden wants to send him this I'd like to have a conversation about this Because board wants to send him this. Uh, I'd like to have a conversation about this because I'm you know he doesn't believe anything in a unsophisticated way no, he's a smart guy and there's this whole warfare thing going on in the background that I know he and I don't agree about.

Kyle: 24:54

But he thinks prayer is doing things on a spiritual level, like literally um with demons and stuff. So like we're not going to be on the same page about that. But but I, not that long ago, was a big defender of this kind of view in that quote that you read against the alternative, which I still find kind of unpalatable, if I'm honest, which is this old Thomist idea essentially didn't come from him, probably, but he was a big proponent of prayer is. You know, we'll get into some of the philosophical issues later but like prayer for various reasons can't really do anything for God, like like God is going to do what God is going to do, and so my asking God at least this kind of prayer, my asking God to do things in the world is going to make literally no causal difference. At least that's the argument. So prayer must be for something else.

Randy: 25:43

It must be for me in some way.

Kyle: 25:45

It must have interesting effects on my relationship to other humans, my relationship to God, my relationship to the world, my relationship to myself. Prayer changes me. That's a very crude way of putting Thomas' view, but that's essentially kind of what's going on there.

Randy: 25:59

Thomas Aquinas, we're talking about Thomas Aquinas.

Kyle: 26:02

He's one of those people who are so famous people only refer to him by his first name and I always found that really kind of boring and I don't know. It just seemed wrong to me. And so when I heard Greg say no prayer is intended to do things in the world Like God wants to partner with you in the work of creation, I thought hell, yeah, yeah, man, that sounds more more right. Why else would we? Because there's lots of ways I could change my psychology. God could have done it in lots of ways. Why that.

Kyle: 26:32

It just seems contrived. If that's what it is, Um and I know that's a crude way of putting that view, but that's the feeling I had, and so part of me feels like yeah, about that, um, but I'm also, I feel what you're saying. Yeah, there's something too I don't know. Too simple about it, too easy.

Randy: 26:50

Yeah, and don't get me wrong, If one of my kids has a health emergency tonight I'm going to be praying my ass off like nonstop. Yeah, Because maybe right, but from where I sit now, if I'm just, I want this to be an honest conversation and I don't deeply resonate with that perspective on prayer anymore, even though I see it in the scriptures and I see Jesus telling us even you know, like yes, that's the bit that's uncomfortable, right?

Kyle: 27:16

Jesus says a lot of things about prayer that are strange, although this is a fun time to bring in this counterpoint quote that I happen to have. So Greg had said something about Jesus didn't say if we have faith and pray, our attitude towards mountains would change.

Randy: 27:29

It's a great quote the mountain would move.

Kyle: 27:31

Which he did. That's uncomfortable, but here's for a counterpoint. Here's CS Lewis. For most of us, the prayer in Gethsemane is the only model. Yes, removing mountains can wait. Yes, that's a good one. The same God that said move mountains prayed, you know, at the core of his trial, and was not answered. So there you go.

Randy: 27:53

What I'm hearing you say is prayer is complex. Yeah. And maybe even you know. For most of us again, the Lewis quote for most of us, prayer in Gethsemane is the only model. Removing mountains can wait.

Kyle: 28:09

That is where I'm at right now, for sure, and I, but that's a flip of where I was 10, 15, 20 years ago yeah, and part of me wonders just like how much of this just comes down to what we're going through at the moment could be what the world is like at the moment like, yeah, we all have evolving faith and it yeah changes and morphs into certain things and you can hear where we are now.

Elliot: 28:33

Yeah, um I'll say like, just practically, like when you say that and actually articulate it that succinctly, I do get uncomfortable with like oh well, if it's not, if we don't do that, then what is prayer?

Elliot: 28:44

but uh, you, you, you have that it makes me a little squirmy, okay, but but when I think about just in practice, like I, I've all but abandoned most of those types of prayer as well like there was a time when it like I would have, uh, prayed for the, the guy on facebook marketplace, to accept my low ball offer on the lawnmower, like you know, like let's make this happen, god, yep, yep, yep, and that's that's not like I guess I I've never articulated or even thought like that's not really how prayer works, but I just that's not where. Where I'm at, it feels now much more like a just a way to express some reciprocity towards a God that I feel like does want to hang out and like wants wants to know me.

Elliot: 29:32

So it's more like a like I'll say prayer now. I mentioned earlier like it feels quieter and it feels less structured, like it's. It's more like a divine snuggle than than like it's almost wordless in many cases, and that does feel like a much more comfortable place now. So I guess all that to say, even though I get uncomfortable when you actually say the words like that.

Randy: 29:54

I'm not sure that that's how it works, uh, in practice, like I would agree yeah, and when I say I'm not sure that's how it works, I just mean that's my perspective. Now, right, like I'm not saying that I think greg boyd or the scriptures are wrong.

Randy: 30:09

I'm just saying well, I'm just saying it doesn't resonate with me at all right now. Yeah and um, I've had enough experiences that make that kind of idea of prayer problematic, right, like totally. That's the kind of idea of prayer problematic, right, like totally. That's the kind of idea of prayer that I mean. I was part of.

Randy: 30:34

My church was part of a movement that centered itself themselves around prayer harp and bowl baby yeah, all of it, like I mean, I I can go for it with the best of them, but in reflecting on my times of like getting up with a worship team and just screaming and crying out from the bottom of my heart and tears coming down my face, literal stuff like this kind of felt like more for me, you know, in some ways than anything. But again, this is just where I'm at personally and where my spirituality is. Let's and if you're listeners, if you're, some of you are getting ready to turn this off and write us a bad review. First of all, go ahead, cause any review is good. Review right.

Randy: 31:17

But, hang on though is what I'm trying to say. We're going to get to the, the where we are with prayer currently Can I haven't given given up on and I quickly come out swinging against.

Kyle: 31:30

One more thing yeah, yeah, yeah, let's go. This is kind of for my old charismatic friends, but not just charismatic. There was this kind of word faith emphasis in the charismatic circles that I was in, which meant that God was kind of not so much a person as a force like a physical force, almost Like an input-output system. You put in certain things according to a formula and it spits out things according to what the Bible promised you, and so certain forms of prayer in the right context, with the right spirit, with enough faith, equals output, whatever that happens to be wealth, health, etc. Yep, and that CS Lewis quote continues. This is worth saying. He says In Gethsemane, the holiest of all petitioners prayed three times that a certain cup might pass from him. It did not. After that, the idea that prayer is recommended to us as a sort of infallible gimmick may be dismissed. I think he's totally right about that. And not only that. It's offensive to me now.

Kyle: 32:22

I remember seeing on this is pre-X days, when it was still called Twitter some I don't know who they were, but some Christian influencer had posted a video of.

Kyle: 32:32

I don't even remember the details, but I think it was something like they were going around praying for people to help them find things they'd lost. Oh, I think God's telling me it's over here, let's go look over here, that kind of stuff. And I had friends who told stories about that all the time. I knew a guy that lost his car one time and God told me where it was and I went and picked him up and we went and found his car. God bless and and or God gave me that parking space or stuff like that, and I remember retweeting it with something along the lines of this to me now seems like a proof for atheism, and what I meant by that was, if God really does that, then then it's this. It's this Dostoevsky kind of thing that God is not worthy of worship Because a God who would help you find your lawnmower and also not save those girls in Texas don't want anything to do with that.

Kyle: 33:17

Yes. Right, and I think we just need to be a little more circumspect about how we're treating our approach to prayer and what it accomplishes in the world here. Absolutely what it accomplishes in the world here.

Randy: 33:26

Absolutely yes. I mean, the way we talk about prayer forms and shapes what we believe about prayer, and I wish more people had more folks had that perspective. So, Kyle, bring us into the you started a little bit, but bring us into the philosophical issues with prayer and the things that you're kind of batting around. Sure, yeah.

Kyle: 33:49

And I'll just do this in a very general way so we don't get bored. First, we should say there's a bunch of different kinds of prayer. Right, there's this intercessory thing we've been talking about, which is, you know, you described it as we're coming before God with concerns of people other than ourselves, bigger things than ourselves. There's petitionary prayer, which is the one that gets the most attention among philosophers, which is asking for stuff that might include intercessory in certain way, but it's also asking for stuff for myself, or intercessory has this connotation, at least among Pentecostals, of I'm trying to like channel what the Holy Spirit is doing.

Kyle: 34:20

Right. Whereas petitionary is. Here's a concern I have. I think God is loving, cares about what I care about. I'm going to ask for this. That's petitionary prayer, at least as I understand it. But there's a bunch of other stuff. Right? You can pray just to say thanks. You can worship God or praise God in the form of prayer. You can speak in tongues right. When you don't know what the hell you're praying. That's kind of the idea. Prayer can be penitent.

Randy: 34:46

I don't know what the word is, it can be.

Kyle: 34:49

Confessional, confessional, there it is yes, repent, repentance, that sort of thing. People like Greg Boyd think prayer can be warfare, like you can literally do battle. You guys remember that old Frank?

Randy: 35:02

Peretti book. You can, frank Peretti, this present darkness, yeah, yeah, yeah, you can present darkness.

Kyle: 35:05

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you can. You can like help the angels out with your prayers, literally. Uh, you can pray for miracles. There's all kinds of ways you can. You can do prayer, um, but the philosophical issues have mostly surrounded that petitionary con, because there's like all these puzzles. A good chunk of philosophy is puzzles. We're like trying to figure out logical games, and prayer presents quite a few of them. Them because it's odd to think about asking. And so if you think of God as you know the traditional theists do as like omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, god can do anything that can be done. God can know anything that can be known. God is all perfectly good, always makes the right choice. God's everywhere at once. It has all the omnis right.

Kyle: 35:48

That's the traditional view of god amongst christians and jews and muslims at least. If you think god is like that, then it's a little weird to ask god to do something right, because why wouldn't god do it already? Yeah, anything I'm gonna ask is gonna be ignorant in comparison to what god is already intending to do.

Kyle: 36:07

So if god were to change god's plan to do what I comparison to what God is already intending to do. So if God were to change God's plan to do what I did instead, what I wanted instead, that would make things worse.

Randy: 36:14

Why would God? Do that.

Kyle: 36:16

There's all kinds of puzzles like that, right. So we have to ask ourselves is prayer actually doing anything? What is the point of it? Does it make any difference? And, like Greg was talking about, does it make any difference in the world Would?

Randy: 36:26

we want it to make any difference in the world?

Kyle: 36:28

Wouldn't that just be making things worse? If it did make any difference in the world, like, can I actually even influence God? Because according to that traditionalist view I mentioned, god is what's called impassable. Now we talked to Tom Ward, who denies this, but that's the classical view, which means God can't really be affected by anything external to God. So a lot of people think God is timeless, so literally can't change, right?

Randy: 36:54

Well, and if we can change God, if God waits for us to change things because we ask for it, then there's a whole bunch of people who, I hope, never pray right. It's really problematic if they ask.

Kyle: 37:11

God to change things.

Kyle: 37:12

But you have to think like, ask god's already taken all this into account, anything I can think of god has already thought of before he ever made the world and has decided you know, I'm gonna do it this way. Um, so it's just odd, and this is why aquinas thought you know prayers for us mostly, it makes sense. Um, so yeah, if I can't like affect anything by praying except me, why do it? What is the point? There must be something else going on and of course, all those thinkers had answers to that. Why do it? It might have lots of important social effects, for example. But, yeah, lots of puzzles. Another one comes from God's moral perfection. If God is morally perfect, he's already doing what's best. Same kind of idea, right?

Kyle: 37:51

or if god like from the epistemological side, if god already knows everything's gonna happen, then it's settled yeah, it's gonna happen like he knew that I was gonna part of what he knows is that I was gonna pray that and he's gonna say yes or no so yeah, it just seems kind of kind of pointless to for stuff.

Kyle: 38:08

So that's a big chunk of what prayer is. Yeah, so part of what made me an open theist go back to Greg Boyd again is there's a little wedge in there for prayer to kind of make some sense Because, like, the future is unsettled and so God might be actively deciding what to do, how to respond to stuff, and my requests might be part of it and also helps you avoid weird paradoxes, like if you have that other view, then it makes sense to pray for stuff.

Randy: 38:35

That's happened already in the past, because if God is, timeless and he's seen the whole thing.

Kyle: 38:39

Then God saw your prayer and that might have been part of why God decided to do that thing 400 years ago.

Randy: 38:46

Agreed. No, that helps those realities, but at the same time it unlocks a whole other set of issues right Around, like well then, why don't I see prayer?

Kyle: 38:55

affecting things and changing things. Yeah, and that's what. We should probably talk about that at some point in this conversation. But that's why I think I have such a hard time with it now is I have a real hard time getting past that, um, a discrepancy. People experience different things in the world and prayer doesn't seem to the kind of God who would answer some prayers and not others.

Randy: 39:17

That creates a real problem for me yeah, and let's just acknowledge the reality that there's probably some people who have these profound, life-changing experiences and stories of prayer where their kid or their spouse or themselves got healed dramatically against all odds and the doctors have no idea what happened. And we believe it's prayer, praise the Lord, I'm legitimately rejoicing with you. And then there's probably countless more people who are listening who lost their kid, lost their spouse, the divorce happened anyway, whatever it is, and it shattered their idea of prayer, and not only shattered their idea of prayer, but shattered their idea of the goodness of God and whether we can lean into in faith on this divine reality. So what we're talking about is really personal and potentially fragile for for us, depending on our experiences, so okay.

Kyle: 40:22

So I'll be honest with you. I feel like all those philosophical things I just went through kind of pointless in a way, like they're fun philosophical puzzles, but and it's real.

Kyle: 40:31

We've all had those questions we have, yes, and I don't think they're, um, you know, without value, but they don't touch me where I'm at. I don't know about you guys. Um, I'm more interested in, less interested in the question of are my prayers accomplishing anything in the world these days? I used to really care about that, but these days I'm more interested in, um, what else might be happening in the space where prayer happens between me and god and other people in the world okay, okay and, and in particular, um what does prayer add?

Kyle: 40:59

that kind of other forms of, I don't know, meditation or something don't like what is adding god to that equation? Do right. So I'm curious to hear how you think about prayer now, these days, the kind that makes you actually want to do it. How does that look different from what it used to be?

Randy: 41:18

Yeah.

Kyle: 41:18

For both of you.

Randy: 41:20

Yeah, we mentioned Jesus a little bit ago and it's stuck in my brain because it's like Jesus becomes a problem, right, like I can easier write off some of something from second Chronicles than I can what Jesus said. Whether that's good or bad, I don't know, um, but the way I've come to see even Jesus saying things like this, we all, we all know this from the sermon on the Mount seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be open for you to ask and you'll receive. I've leaned in in faith, in those kind of prayers for years, and I mean like with high expectation and hopefulness, and I don't want to judge my past self, I just want to. It helps me to actually process these things that Jesus said, because I see him differently now. Right, I think what Jesus was saying a little bit more now is I want you to live a life where you're seeking the answers.

Randy: 42:24

I want you to live the kind of life and have the kind of spirituality where you're living a life of curiosity, where you're not satisfied with the answers that you've been given, where you're not just sitting in the certainty that you've been given. I want you to keep knocking on doors. I want you to keep asking the hard questions. I want you to keep expecting good things of God, even. I want you to keep pushing and moving towards life, towards goodness, towards reality and the answers, because eventually you're going to continue to get there, and it's not even like a destination in this life, it's just you keep on moving into that space. I want you to be transformed as a person who lives their life in that way. Does that resonate with either of you at all, or is that kind of hippie, frou-frou garbage?

Elliot: 43:16

I guess it would. It would make me wonder, like, how you would know when you were praying, or if you ever started, or if you ever stopped, or maybe that's what the without ceasing thing meant. Yeah, yeah but it's like, if yes, that all sounds really nice. But then like, what is? What is prayer? And is is it ever necessary to acknowledge that we're beginning to pray?

Randy: 43:39

Yeah. So let me give you a couple of thank you. Let me give you a couple of quotes from somebody that I really enjoy. I know Kyle might give a little side you know little side eye to it, but Richard Rohr said I have a spiritual director. He's kind of like my Santa Claus spiritual director, the guy that I don't know who's formed and shaped me in profound ways. But he says let me give you a couple quotes by Rohr about prayer. He said spirituality is about being ready. I roar about prayer. He said spirituality is about being ready.

Randy: 44:11

All the spiritual disciplines of your life prayer, study, meditation, ritual, religious vows, whatever they're all there so you can break through to the eternal. Spirituality is about awakening the eyes, the ears and the heart so you can see what's always happening right in front of you. That's kind of what I'm getting at a little bit when I say not necessarily ask for the particular things and you'll receive them or seek, and then I'm going to give them to you. It's more of a posture of my heart, my soul I know Kyle the materialist has problems with that word but it's a spiritual posture where I'm kind of trying to get my eyes to see things that are more than what's right in front of me. I'm trying to see and process the world in a different way than the material object that I am. That I am right. I'm trying to see and process the world in a way that I think Jesus saw the world in really beautiful, world-altering ways of seeing what is possible, seeing what's happening beneath the surface. To me, prayer and spiritual practices are developing that muscle in us.

Randy: 45:22

Let me give you another couple quotes by Rohr. He said Prayer is sitting in the silence until it silences us, choosing gratitude until we are grateful and praising God until we ourselves are an act of praise. I'm going to say that again Prayer is sitting in the silence until it silences us. Prayer is choosing gratitude until we are grateful and prayer is praising God until we ourselves are an act of praise. What are your thoughts on?

Elliot: 45:56

that Spiritual director, santa's coming down the chimney tonight. Let's go.

Randy: 46:06

Here's the last one.

Randy: 46:07

Last one Because I like all these personally, this is great Moore says this Prayer is looking out from a different set of eyes, which are not comparing, not competing or judging or labeling or analyzing, but receiving the moment in its present wholeness and unwholeness. That is what is meant by contemplation. Let me say that again because I know it's hard to hear something as you're driving or cutting the grass or whatever you're doing, and really let that sit in. He said prayer is looking out from a different set of eyes, which are not comparing, not competing or judging, labeling or analyzing, but receiving the moment in its present wholeness and unwholeness. This is what is meant by contemplation. So you hear what he's getting at.

Randy: 46:52

That prayer is something that forms and shapes us to be in the mold of receiving, to be in the mold of not just having a moment of gratitude but actually living a life of gratitude. To not just see in a fleeting moment what maybe is behind the person that I'm praying for, but actually I get to see the people around me and the circumstances and the world around me in different ways because I've centered myself in this posture of prayer. It's actually changed and formed me to be able to just show up in the world in a different way and see the world in a different way and perhaps that's answer to prayers so I feel bad on this, I know, I know but I thought you might do it anyway though I know this is meaningful to you.

Randy: 47:48

Go ahead, go ahead.

Kyle: 47:49

No, I mean I want to be charitable. I haven't read this in context so I don't know. You know what's going on around this, but some of it seems straightforwardly like evidence-based in the sense that that bit about letting go of comparison, competition, judgment, analysis, receiving the moment, being present to the moment, wholeness, whatever it is, accepting it for what, like that's meditation 101, right, it's very consonant with, like any religious traditions version of contemplation. There's nothing particularly Christian about that.

Kyle: 48:24

Which it doesn't have to be, no it doesn't at all and again, I haven't read the context so I'm sure he's not saying that's all.

Randy: 48:31

Prayer is it's just the way it's phrased here.

Kyle: 48:33

Prayer is it's very obviously not all prayer is right If that's all prayer was, there'd be nothing interesting about Christianity, or at least Christian prayer. So that's one thing. There's a whole world of prayer, outside of what we now think of as mindfulness, because that's what that is. That's what he's describing Mindfulness is huge. It's a thing that I want to practice more in my life. It's empirically very well studied and very well supported. It's important and it transcends religion, as I said.

Randy: 49:05

But what if we could flip it and say like, what if mindfulness is a practice that's coming online and schools are practicing it? We're getting our kids to practice being mindful. What if that's just a an ancient spiritual practice that we've all kind of awakened to and put different words around?

Kyle: 49:20

It is. It absolutely is. That demonstrably is yes, that's fine, but you don't need God for it. That's my only point. You can be an atheist and have all the same practices and all the same effects, and that's fine, um, and I am in fact, an agnostic. So, like I don't have, you know, I don't have like strong negative feelings about that, I just want to note that that's not a particularly Christian view of prayer, um, which, of course, richard knows. Um the other stuff, though, like what does it mean to break through to the eternal? That sounds a little guru-y to me, I just don't know what it means.

Kyle: 49:53

Like some of these phrases, they sound interesting and like they're kind of breaking out of these, these, these molds that we've gotten into with prayer, where they're not doing anything for us anymore.

Randy: 50:03

We have certain objections to the things they represent, and so saying something like that sounds like oh, it was different, I think you're smart, like okay, what do you think he means by breaking through to the things they represent, and so saying something like that sounds like oh, it was different. I think you're smart, like okay, what do you think he means by breaking through to the eternal?

Elliot: 50:12

I literally think it's an incoherent sentence no it wouldn't, it doesn't stand up to any like it's, the scientific method doesn't work and you can't go all academic on it, but still like. Language is a way of like. You put together a string of words that conveys the feeling of something, and just because you can't submit that for evidence doesn't mean that it doesn't still.

Kyle: 50:39

So like the second part of it.

Randy: 50:40

Ecclesiastes says eternity is written on our hearts right Now. That's a poetic way which I think Richard Rohr is saying breaking through into the eternal is a poetic way of speaking to something that you know very well about, which is that we all know something very well about, which I would say is just there's, you're a materialist. The reason why I'm pausing so much is because you're a materialist and that's really obnoxious, for this conversation.

Kyle: 51:08

Many of the things you want to reach for as compelling reasons will not be compelling to me, not to you.

Randy: 51:13

Yes, but I believe, let me say this I believe that when we talk about appeals to eternity, it's the nonsense. To me is like thinking about something that's never ending or whatever. That's that's when I think about the eternal. I don't think about that. I think about this divine reality. Like the book of Revelation is an apocalyptic book, where you're having the veil taken back from reality and seeing what's really going on behind the scenes, what God sees, and I think that's a little bit getting at what we talk about.

Randy: 51:42

When we talk about the eternal, we're talking about something that there's more going on than just what we see here. There's more beauty, there's more magic, there's more power, there's more love, there's more pain, all of it that actually you need to be mindful, you need to be prayerful, you need to be contemplative in order to actually see those things, in order to actually be present with those things, rather than just attending to the rat race that is today, but actually being able to be present in a more conscious way, in a more holistic way, in a less kind of I'm attending to these minute details, but I'm actually seeing the whole of my life in a really mature way. I'm trying to wrap words around this idea.

Elliot: 52:34

That's very ethereal well, what you just said is entirely incompatible with materialism. Maybe that needs to be an episode at some point, because the whole Christian materialist thing I don't get at all but maybe I'm just not understanding where you're coming from Every time you're tempted to think my spirit.

Kyle: 52:52

Just replace it with my brain and you got it. Actually, it's bigger than your brain, my body and the six inches around it.

Elliot: 53:00

But that idea that there is something beyond what's seen, something beyond what can be accounted for at the cellular level or even that there's.

Randy: 53:13

we humans can get really, really focused on the day-to-day details. I've got my to-do list, I've got like I've got four, three practices to get my kids to on top of the dentist, and then I've got this is my day or this is my week, and we get sucked into that reality and feel like what did I even do today, right at the end of the day, instead of actually maybe having some centering prayer at the end of the day where I can actually reflect on my day and see where were the invitations from the Holy Spirit, what was God trying to teach me in these moments, and also maybe elevate above the details of the dentist appointments and the practices that I got to go to and actually can I appreciate who my kid is in a larger way than just kind of attending to their material needs.

Kyle: 53:59

Yeah, yeah, I love all of that.

Randy: 54:02

And I'm and I don't say that in a way of and again, if you want to attribute that to mindfulness, praise the Lord. I couldn't care less, but for me, that idea of mindfulness is even just this little piece of what I think prayerfulness can look like, which is holding something bigger and something more.

Kyle: 54:20

I suppose we're probably just in different places. In different places, like I, can see how, coming from a certain kind of perspective, there would be immense value in that kind of new experience of prayer. Whereas coming from a different perspective, where you're looking for different things and you've gotten used to certain kinds of I don't know modes of experiencing the world or, I don't know, you've come to terms with certain facts about yourself and certain things that go on in the world and your ability to control or not control them whatever, certain other aspects of prayer might be more important to you and more salient, and they certainly are for me. So here's a way. I'm Pentecostal, you ready for it? I think prayer should involve God. I think God should be there.

Randy: 54:59

Do you think what Rohwer was saying or what I've, me and Elliot have been saying doesn't involve God?

Kyle: 55:03

I think it doesn't need to. Yeah, and this is some of that character guardian stuff too. There's a whole lot of things we can do at the ethical level that are, seen from the outside, super similar to being religious.

Randy: 55:14

See if I could be crass and just really quick, cause I'm sure I'm sure it's too crass and you're going to correct me, but that seems like a kindergarten way of thinking about God to me.

Kyle: 55:24

How so.

Randy: 55:25

It seems like a very, very simplistic way to say, like if I'm not actually talking to the deity that I believe in using coherent words I'm not praying.

Kyle: 55:33

It's not if I'm addressing them with certain kinds of forms of language. It's if they are not necessary to anything causal that's happening in the process.

Elliot: 55:43

Just like meditating doesn't need to involve God, you can just meditate. Yeah, I'm a reductionist in many process.

Kyle: 55:46

Just like meditating doesn't need to involve God. You can just meditate. Yeah, I'm a reductionist in many ways. Maybe I shouldn't be, but this is part of my empiricism. So I'm always looking for the way to make something simpler. Take that same thing that seems complex and see if we can reduce it.

Kyle: 55:57

And reduction is a technical term. It means without loss of any kind of function or any kind of causal effects. We can take x and we can say x is in fact just no more than y, so water is in fact no more than h2o. That's what reduction means, and so I'm tempted to that, that tendency. I want to do it as much as I can, and so when I see something that seems like a kind of grand explanation or justification for something complicated, but it seems to me that all the same stuff could be accomplished with something that requires fewer assumptions, I'm going to go for that second thing. And I don't know man, everything he described, everything I've heard you guys describe, can certainly be an aspect of prayer to me, but it can also be an aspect of something that goes by lots of other names, sure than by.

Randy: 56:51

that goes by lots of other names, sure, but I think my view of the divine and and who god is and what god's like to me now looks a lot more holistic and unlimited and unbothered by words, phrases, jargon.

Kyle: 57:06

Let me ask this Is that because you have kind of a stable sense of God, pervading it already like God's?

Randy: 57:13

already there, yes.

Kyle: 57:14

Yeah, maybe that's the difference. I remember one of the books that really stuck with me for my actual Pentecostal days was the practice of the presence of God that Brother Lawrence wrote Good stuff.

Kyle: 57:26

Yeah, love it, still love it to this day. And yeah, so he like prays by mopping the floor. Mm-hmm, right, that's practically the essence of his prayer is I'm moving this mop or I'm cooking this meal, and he describes that at one point. As sometimes I have to distract myself, I have to look away from the task because it's overwhelming the presence of God in it. That seems right to me. I don't know what prayer is supposed to look like, but that's probably pretty close.

Kyle: 57:59

I don't think it actually matters what physical thing is happening. If you're actually attuned to god's presence in it, that seems right, um. But if we're trying to justify prayer, maybe I'm misreading roar here, I don't know if we're trying to justify prayer by pointing to the. I don't know the effects or the functions or the um, I don't know what it, what it does to me psychologically, or anything other than my experience of being in communion with another person who was literally right there.

Randy: 58:34

Then it it stopped seeming like prayer to me or like, but maybe that's because he's already assuming that in the background, you know, and they were just coming from different places. The interesting thing to me is that recently and by recently I mean the last several years prayer has gotten much more silent for me. It's gotten much more wordless, it's gotten much more meditative and it actually feels more like communion with God to me. Feels more like communion with God to me Before, when I filled it with a bunch of words to a deity that I was speaking to it felt like a bunch of words.

Elliot: 59:15

It felt like a pretend, make-believe conversation literally, it was performative, if only for yourself.

Randy: 59:20

Yeah, and I got to a point where I just felt like, like you said, elliot, it was performative, it was me filling the air with words because I felt like that was what was expected of me. And now, actually, when I take a walk, like I'm going to do probably tonight, when I take a walk late at night, no one else is around. I hear the breeze in the trees, I see, I look at these amazing trees or see the stars, whatever it is, and I feel something bigger than me, that what I call God, the divine, jesus, the incarnate one, you know, um, the words almost ruin the moment for me. It almost feels like it ruins that, and this is where I think how I take prayer. As for me personally now, it's just communion with God, union with the divine.

Randy: 1:00:07

Sounds so weird and hippie-ish, but that's my experience and kind of talking about what you're saying, kyle, I don't need. Sometimes the words get in the way of experiencing the divine life and communing with the divine life, and that's why it feels concrete for me, even though it's silent. Do you know what I mean? Tell me your question or ask.

Kyle: 1:00:32

No, I think maybe we're not as far apart as we seemed. You just actually practice it and I don't Like.

Elliot: 1:00:38

yeah, there are meditative elements of prayer, but they're doing something more when God is in it and part of it, and God is obviously always in nature and the fact that those elements might be present outside of what we think of as Christian prayer doesn't make them any less Christian prayer, especially if one subscribes to that idea that all truth is God's truth, that this whole, that all of creation, actually works together in a really uh, just beautiful orchestrated way where it's like, yeah, it would, it would make sense that, uh, these experiences of deep communion with, with, with self and with nature, with others, yeah, that this is that this is prayer, not not because it's anything theologically correct, but just because that's how the world works and was designed and that's how God operates in the world. Yeah.

Randy: 1:01:34

I'd like to believe that at least and I feel like I sense it. But I felt like I sensed the intercessory prayer stuff 15 years ago.

Kyle: 1:01:43

You know what I mean. But that's also why I want to hold this all with open hands. Yeah, you got to be gracious to yourself. I mean, that's not to say there wasn't something really happening there, you know.

Randy: 1:01:52

Yeah. So let's talk about because this is getting long can we transition into some real practices of prayer? That at least I practice, and I'd like to hear if you guys have any practices of prayer.

Kyle: 1:02:05

Can I read one more thing before we do that?

Randy: 1:02:07

Yeah.

Kyle: 1:02:07

Because I think it jives with what we're saying. I promise this is my last CS Lewis quote of the evening. All right, I promise I'm not evangelical anymore, neither was he.

Randy: 1:02:20

You philosophers love those hard. It died this hard.

Kyle: 1:02:22

Yeah, no, I really liked it, and I wonder if you think this is consonant with what Rohr was doing. So he says prayer is either a sheer illusion or a personal contact between embryonic, incomplete persons ourselves and the utterly concrete person God. Yep, I love that he says embryonic because, it has this sense of like deep time right, we're just getting started, it's just getting started. For all we know, he says prayer and the sense of petition asking for things is a small part of it. Confession and penitence are its threshold. That's interesting.

Randy: 1:03:01

Adoration Just getting started.

Kyle: 1:03:02

Yeah, like, like that's the ticket.

Elliot: 1:03:05

That's the entry.

Kyle: 1:03:05

That's the entry price that attitude, that posture, adoration. It's sanctuary, the presence and vision and enjoyment of God. It's bread and wine. In it God shows himself to us. That he answers prayer is a corollary and not necessarily the most important one from that revelation. In it he shows himself to us. What he does is learn from what he is. I think maybe that helps bridge the gap between what Rohr is doing and where I'm coming from. Yes, I don't care so much about what's being done right. I want to know that.

Elliot: 1:03:42

God's there. What's that last bit? What he does is learn from what he is.

Kyle: 1:03:47

Yeah, and now he's talking about this in the context of you know, does petitionary prayer, does the question, does prayer work, even make sense, or is that just an entirely wrongheaded framing? And he thinks it is a wrongheaded framing. If you want to know what God is doing in the world, that question only makes sense in the context of already being in a relationship with that, or being in a kind of contact with that, that person. As he says, the threshold for even getting to the place of asking that question is a certain kind of posture, a certain kind of confessional well, he says the presence and vision and enjoyment of god is its bread and wine.

Randy: 1:04:23

That's the eucharist is, that's the, that's the heart of prayer I think. Think is what Lewis is saying is the presence of God and the vision of God and the enjoyment of God and being enjoyed by God. And I think that I think Rohr would say yes and amen to that.

Kyle: 1:04:38

And that appeals to the materialist. Because, that's such a physical, tangible, like embodied practice, like on the face of it, literally in the text. It's an embodied practice of, and I don't need to feel anything, I don't need to think anything about what's happening in the spiritual realm when it happens. I just need to know that that person is giving me that thing to put in my mouth and it's, it means, what it means you know, and that yeah, I don't know.

Randy: 1:05:05

Yeah. So, that said, with that beautiful idea from Lewis of the presence and vision, enjoyment of God being the heart or the bread and the wine of prayer. Elliot, if I would say what does your prayer life look like? Would you say not much right now, or do you have certain practices, or is this something that you're trying to like? I want to pray, but I don't know how. Where are you?

Elliot: 1:05:32

Yeah, I want more. I feel like, with the loss of structure and, in some ways, belief around what prayer is like, getting into the doubts that we've really talked through openly here, uh, it takes some of the wind out of the sails. For sure, like I said at the the outset, it doesn't. It doesn't in any way shift the way that it feels really important, but I don't know how to express it and in like in the, in the, in the way that you'd expect that to be paralyzing. It has been yes.

Randy: 1:06:10

Thank you. I think those words resonate with so many friends who are listening. Kyle, would you kind of say you're there.

Kyle: 1:06:21

Hard, yes, hard yes. Yeah. My last question on the outline was what is the place of anger in prayer and I'm maybe I need to see a therapist like which stage of grief is that right, yeah, yeah, maybe it is grief yeah, it's.

Elliot: 1:06:42

it was interesting hearing you talk through just like kind of the philosophical struggles with prayer, like it sounds like most of your best experiences with prayer were before you thought about it quite as much.

Kyle: 1:06:57

Maybe so, and that probably Before it became so yeah.

Elliot: 1:07:00

That's vivid in the way that you lay it out, but I think it's probably true for many of us. Yeah, yeah.

Kyle: 1:07:08

I was reading CS Lewis today, as you might have noticed, at one point he said something about hearing you know, a respected Christian that he knew, say something like isn't it interesting?

Kyle: 1:07:20

and this is a rough paraphrase, but isn't it interesting that, like all the most dramatic prayer moments that most Christians have are like towards the beginning of their being a Christian, right before or right after, and they tend to mellow out, yeah, and prayer becomes more trying later on and you might even feel like very tangibly getting negative responses from God later on, almost the opposite. That might, you know, tell us something important about the nature of prayer. I don't know.

Kyle: 1:07:50

That does seem to match my experience, and it wasn't like I was unaware of suffering right at that time. In fact, one of my most vivid probably my most vivid memory of prayer was occurring in the home of someone who was like undergoing a psychotic break, essentially like it was. There was shit going on and um, and that's when it happened. So I don't know, I don't have any answers to this. This is a complicated, weird thing, but I know that when I try now, the thing I'm confronted with most viscerally- is why, yeah did either of you have this experience.

Elliot: 1:08:28

I think it seems like it's often the elderly relative, but the you know, the prayer warrior, the, the one that you know prays for you every day, or like that will even say I mean, I, my, my grandparents would go through and, by name, pray for each of their grandchildren yeah every day and I knew that as a kid like that was, that was openly advertised and maybe that's part of the dysfunction of that, that family culture.

Elliot: 1:08:53

But it also was really beautiful and I felt loved in a in an ongoing and, yeah, just really a tangible way. Yeah, I knew every day that they were praying for me and I believed them when they said that yep, yeah, yeah, and I would like to have that type of right presence in my family especially think. Think about being the the elder member of your family totally like there.

Kyle: 1:09:24

There is something beautiful there a more reconstructed version of that would be really nice. Like my dad had an aunt, he would talk about her all the time who because he didn't convert until his 50s, I think, or close to it. And, yeah, she prayed for him all the time and he knew about it because she told him she'd call him up and say I'm still praying and then she left him a bible, which unfortunately was a scofield dispensational. Bible, so that had its negative consequences too, but yeah that was a big part of his life change.

Kyle: 1:09:49

Yeah.

Randy: 1:09:50

I mean my mom and dad have prayed for me and the whole family every single morning for our whole lives, you know, and I used to think that I'm doing what I'm doing because of those prayers, and maybe I am who knows used to think that I'm doing what I'm doing because of those prayers and maybe I am, who knows the tension in me now is that there seems to me to be a fair amount of superstition in a faith like that, in transactionality, in a faith like that that I'm not super comfortable with but also, at the same time, still feels really beautiful and innocent and lovely to me.

Elliot: 1:10:25

Yeah, it's like I mean the word grief came up a couple minutes ago like this it feels there is some grief around the loss of certain beautiful things, about that faith that was so dysfunctional. And I feel that regularly, not just in the area of prayer, but to recognize like there are things that I'm not going to be for my family or for myself or whatever for the world, because I've said goodbye to some of these things.

Randy: 1:10:49

Yep, absolutely, and I think that's where I do this nonsensical thing of like. Even though I don't know what I think about intercessory prayer, I still pray for people all the time is that it's a mystery, so why not? And also when I'm praying for one of my boys because I know they're having a hard time in school and really, really are in a dark place, it helps me attune myself to them. And if like, why not?

Kyle: 1:11:14

It has real value. It's my attitude, right? So, Randy, you've posed a lot of hard questions for us. We're doing some deconstructing self-analysis over here. At least I feel like I am. What about you?

Randy: 1:11:32

What does your prayer life look like at this point? Yeah, yeah, it's much more Rorian, and that was. I love that quote by CS Lewis. By the way, you win the quote battle of the interview, but it feels like that. So a gift to me and my spirituality has been that, as my belief in prayer has waned and as my understanding, my felt understanding, has kind of fallen apart, that sort of prayer, intercessory, petitionary, whatever you want to call it prayer I kind of felt like I was given a gift spiritually in the contemplative journey and the contemplative way, and so prayer has been like I'll take prayer walks all the time. Again, plan to tonight.

Randy: 1:12:13

However, prayer walks for me don't look like they used to. I'm not going to be interceding on behalf of my neighborhood, even though I have before, but I'm not going to be doing that tonight. I'm going to be walking, maybe with my dog, but probably by myself, and I'm just kind of trying to attune myself to the world around me and to the God that I think inhabits it and creates it and loves it, and I want to tune myself more to that love. I want to tune myself more to that presence, I want to attune myself more to the goodness of it that's all around me all the time. I want to. Prayer for me looks sometimes like paying attention to the birds and letting birds actually, the wonder of them and the beauty and the simplicity and the innocence teach me and also take me like, bring my awareness to something different, bigger, more peaceful and settled. Prayer, like the word shalom, does something to me or means something to me in prayer. So it's a lot of silence. Nature helps me, so I get out on walks If I want to pray, if I want to clear my mind or be attentive to the, to the divine life, I'll take a walk always.

Randy: 1:13:29

Um, let me give you an example of one of these times in prayer I was. It was over January. I thought of you guys afterwards Cause I was like, oh man, this was prayer for me. Um, I was by myself, smoking a pipe, standing in front of a frozen lake in the North woods of Wisconsin, in this place that I deeply love, like I feel it's one of those places. I don't know if you have one of these places, but it's a place where my, my inner man comes alive when I'm there and I feel like I can breathe deeply and expand a little bit and I just started feeling myself filled with gratitude and so I felt like I was this, like pebble that got tossed into this lake and there's these concentric circles and my spirit, my mind, whatever you want to say in prayer was kind of moving from inside that circle out, and so I just became aware and grateful for the nature around me and just kind of dwelt on it, looking at the shoreline you know that was a long ways away and feeling the breeze and hearing the pine trees, and I was present in that moment with those things and grateful, deeply grateful, to God for them.

Randy: 1:14:34

And then I zoomed out and was grateful for the land itself and also the indigenous people who inhabited this land way before I did and who treated it with way more love and respect than I did. And I think we're tapping into something beautiful and divine and I sat in gratitude for those ones that were there centuries before me. And then I started noticing the stars and I started holding and being grateful for the cosmos and the wonders of the universe around me and sat in that for several minutes. And then, as my awareness was like getting expanded and expanded, all of a sudden I started thinking about the incarnation, because sometimes in those moments I can zoom out too much to where I almost get feel overwhelmed in that presence and in that prayer, if you will.

Randy: 1:15:23

And then the incarnation rooted me back into the particular again that my body matters, my life matters, my thoughts matter, my actions matter, and sitting in gratitude for all of that and it felt like this kind of structured prayer that was as unstructured as it gets, it's just. I felt like it was the Spirit of God bringing me into an awareness, into a presence where I could receive the goodness that was all around me, that I would have in and of myself the day that I came out of I would have no way to be attentive to those things. To me that was a deep and profound experience of prayer and I don't think anything happened except for my change in heart and posture and maybe maybe practicing, like Brother Lawrence says, the presence of God and the reality of the goodness that's all around me all the time. That, to me, is more of what prayer looks like and what I want out of prayer more these days.

Kyle: 1:16:22

You make it sound compelling. It's funny that you mentioned incarnation. I was thinking about that the whole time you were talking reminds me of that old quote. I think it was gregor of nauseansis. It said something along the lines of what has not been assumed has not been redeemed. Yes, and if you take incarnation seriously, it's not just to the level of the human organism, correct, right, it's all of creation, yep down to the quantum and.

Kyle: 1:16:49

I hate it when when people start talking about physics and the I was gonna say you're doing what you, but like it's all the way down right, and, in that sense, the more particular you get, the more. That's what mindfulness is about, right, it's about becoming aware of, just aware of all of the stuff happening in your body, happening in the space around you, as particular as you can get and I've never done psychedelics, but people tell me that that gives you a very similar experience, like you can?

Kyle: 1:17:18

be aware of very particular things and, in a sense, if you take, you know, if you think incarnation is a concrete fact about the world, the more particular you get, the more close to God you get.

Randy: 1:17:31

Yeah, and everything matters.

Kyle: 1:17:32

That's what Jesus is right. He's in that, so that makes sense to me. What you just described. I don't feel like that in nature, but I can get on board with the idea of paying close attention to almost anything. The closer you get to it, the closer you get to God.

Randy: 1:17:50

Yeah, where do we end this?

Elliot: 1:17:56

Whenever you don't know how to land a sermon, what do you do?

Randy: 1:18:03

Pray. Thanks for listening to A Pastor and a Philosopher walk into a bar. We hope you're enjoying these conversations. Help us continue to create compelling content and reach a wider audience. By supporting us at patreoncom. Slash a pastor and a philosopher. We can get bonus content, extra perks and a general feeling of being a good person.

Kyle: 1:18:33

Also, please rate and review the show in Apple, spotify or wherever you listen. These help new people discover the show and we may even read your review in a future episode.

Randy: 1:18:41

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Kyle: 1:18:49

Find us on social media at at ppwbpodcast, and find transcripts and links to all of our episodes at pastorandphilosopherbuzzsproutcom. See you next time, cheers.

Randy: 1:19:08

My inner man comes alive when I'm there and I feel like I can breathe deeply and expand a little bit. And I was sitting out there in front of this, oh gosh, sorry.

Elliot: 1:19:17

What did she say?

Kyle: 1:19:18

No, I was going to be like, if that lasts for more than four hours, I should see it Okay. Nicely done.

Randy: 1:19:27

I'm really sorry.