Prayer After Certainty

Prayer can fall apart slowly. One day you are sure your words move heaven, and eventually you can't tell if you're talking to anyone at all. We return to the topic of prayer to discuss what happens when it stops feeling natural, when the old charismatic certainty no longer fits, and when trying to pray the way you used to would feel performative instead of real.

We dig into how Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity formed us with beautiful gifts as well as disappointed expectations, especially the pressure to pray with confidence, eloquence, and nonstop positivity. From public prayer “for the room” to private prayer that feels like a foreign language, we name the awkwardness, the grief, and the fear that prayer struggles can signal a bigger faith crisis. We share stories of spiritual experience, including moments that feel like the Holy Spirit’s presence and the unsettling moments that feel like absence.

Then we turn toward rebuilding. We talk about liturgical prayer and communal rhythms, written prayers that give us words when we do not have them, and how practices like contemplative prayer, attention in creation, gratitude, and the Eucharist can become genuine ways of connecting with God without pretending we have it all figured out. We also wrestle with a hard question for progressive Christianity and post-evangelical life: if you change enough ingredients, is it still prayer, or did it become something else?

If you feel stuck, cynical, hopeful, or all of the above about prayer, you are not alone. We'd love to hear from you.

Catch our first conversation about prayer here.

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Transcript

Welcome And Why Prayer Feels Hard

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 at 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. About a year ago, we released an episode where we just the two of us talked about prayer. Yep. And Elliot. Elliot was there. Oh, thank you. Yeah, Elliot's not here right now. I'm not thinking of him. Sorry, I love you, Elliot. We had a conversation about prayer, and the reason that we did that is because prayer is one of those things that within our faith tradition or faith journey, for many of us, um, I'm talking for you and I, but also for many people who think similarly and are in a similar camp, prayer is a struggle. Prayer is something that we have been given and taught a lot about and told that we have to do a lot of in order to be good Christians. And um it fit for me for a long, long time. Like that idea of prayer and praying unceasingly and praying with passion and faith and belief and all the things and your prayers affecting much if you're you know not sinning too much, you know, prayers of a righteous man affect a lot.

Kyle 1:38

I mean flashbacks of Pentecostal days.

Randy 1:40

Here we go. Um effecteth. Yes. That's another layer there. I didn't get to that one.

Kyle 1:48

No, or was it a valeth? It doesn't work. Availeth.

Randy 1:50

I think that much I think that might be right. It all worked for me for a long time. Yeah. And then it just didn't. Like it it it just slowly started. Um I don't even know how to put it. It just slowly started fading into a a real struggle, something that I had a harder and harder time doing, something that I wanted to do less and less, and something that um until I like actually took a long hard honest look at it and said, I'm okay with where I am now with prayer, which is I don't pray much and I don't know how to pray so much right now. And it feels um like I'm speaking a foreign language sometimes to me. I wound up in that space. Yeah, yeah, it turns out even pastors can get there, right? Um, and then what do you do? Yeah. You know, this is the stuff of the beginnings of faith crises, even of um am I talking to anyone or what is prayer, or how does it, how does it work? All those things. When you start asking those questions, it feels like something's unraveling and it kind of does it quickly, right? Yeah. Has this been your experience?

Kyle 2:53

Uh a little slower and and obviously less impactful because nothing in my life rides on it. Nobody's looking to me for any kind of uh you know advice about what they should be doing about this or anything like that. And also my kids are very young, and so it's not a it's not part of our thing that has to come up in our home. Yeah. I'm curious what's gonna happen when it is. It's coming soon. Yeah, I know it is, I know it is. We we will I've mentioned this before, but we will occasionally be with family, and you know, prayer happens in in spaces, usually around meals, and I just can't not laugh. Like at one point, uh, if any if any of my in-laws are listening to this, I apologize. But um, we we were having a meal and um, you know, somebody's praying at the table silently, and my my kid get my five-year-old goes, Why are they sleeping? Why are you sleeping at the table? And I just lost it. I could not laugh at that.

Randy 3:52

That's a lot less sex religious and a lot more funny than I thought it was.

Kyle 3:55

He has no clue, right? No grid for it at all. And and that's I guess by choice, you know, um, however intentional it was or not. Um, because I that is gonna be a whole conversation. And I know myself well enough to know that I'm gonna make that harder for him than his friend's parents are. Oh gosh, yeah. You know, yeah, um, even while even while I try to make it easy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Randy 4:22

Yeah.

Kyle 4:23

But yeah, prayers, I don't know, man. It's weird.

Randy 4:26

Yeah, so we released that about a year ago, and it struck a chord. I mean, I I heard about that episode more than I've heard about a lot of episodes in a while. Um, because I think other friends have have this shared reality. So I wanted to come back to it because there was such energy behind it, and also because there's so much to it, and we're not going to get to it here, but I wanted to try our hand into part two, just to kind of flesh out a few things a little bit more. And to, you know, like since we've had that conversation, I've feel like I've dug a little bit deeper. And so I want to just revisit that, see where you're at, hear where I'm at, um, and talk a little bit more about prayer because it feels still feels to me like it I want it to be a feature of my spiritual life. I want prayer to be something that is a gift to me, that transforms me in some way, shape, or form. I want prayer to be something that brings me into a a state of relationship that enhances my spiritual journey and it changes the way I see the world. And I want to believe that prayer does matter in some way, shape, or form. Yeah. Even though I certainly don't believe think about it the same way that I used to. Yeah. Even though I really think it's mystery, and I don't have tons of faith all the time. I want to.

Kyle 5:42

Yeah, so I would go as far as to say, and I don't remember everything I said in the previous conversation, so if I end up repeating something, apologies, listeners. Uh go back and listen to that if you haven't. Um but to me, I can't I can't quite fathom what it would be to be a Christian without prayer. Yeah. And I say that as someone who does not pray. Yeah. Yeah. You know, because it's it's in a way it's the most fundamental aspect of Christianity. You think so? As I understand it. Because it's if you think that God is a person that you can have a relationship with, even if you think that relationship is communal, which implies certain ethical commitments, and you have to act towards other people in your community in a certain way, which I do believe. Nonetheless, there is a fundamental sense in which Christianity is you relating to God. I thou. Right? That whole thing. And that prayer is simply connecting with that person. If that's not a thing, then I don't know what Christianity like that's a sort of necessary condition as far as I can tell to be Christian.

Randy 6:47

We don't have to go too far into this, but I just I have a little bit of a hard time with that, just mainly because when Jesus would explain the kind of I think the kind of faith that he's looking for, when he would get questions from the religious people of his day, he would always tell stories about ways of living. He would tell stories about how to treat someone who is your enemy, or he would tell a story about what it looks like to be a s a father to some sons, or what what it looks like. Like he it always is shaped around how to live my life. And so I kind of feel like that's that's the thing of Christianity. But it's interesting to hear you say yeah, kind of thing.

Kyle 7:24

Well, he also prayed a lot. He escaped to pray a lot. He prayed with people a lot, he told people how to pray. Yep. Um, he prayed publicly. It seemed to be the thing that fueled the rest of it. Okay. Like the I don't think they're separable, right? I'll take that. The ethics, the action, the you know, justice, the living in the world in a particular way, and the loving God. Love God, love others. They're the same idea. Okay, right, I think. Um so at a very fundamental, like, you know, Sunday school level, prayer is talking to God. Yeah. And Christianity is not the only religion that thinks you can communicate with God, but it's a core feature. You know? Yeah. So as as bad as I am at it, I think it's pretty crucial. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Charismatic Certainty And Disillusionment

Randy 8:12

Yeah. No, and I think as I've been reflecting on prayer on my own and pr my my history with prayer. Um, I came out of, I mean, my my my history as a Christian is super complex and complicated. I mean, I have grew up with a Lutheran dad, a Baptist mom, then I went into the evangelical non-denominational megachurch world, but then I found myself in a charismatic Christian world by surprise in my young adulthood. And then that really, really shaped me. And I planted a church in in that tradition, in that charismatic tradition. And I, you know, you were around in our church when I was still in that charismatic kind of world and worldview and seeing things in that way and praying prayers full of faith, full of passion, full of just uh so intense. And I think that actually kind of I don't want to say ruined my idea or vision of or practice of prayer, but I feel like I'm I'm still disentangling myself from that and trying to look find out what prayer looks like on the other side of it, if you will. And that's only because when we would talk about prayer in my tradition, we would talk about it in ways that were full of certainty. And when I would pray, it was prayers of such faith and such confidence about what God is going to do and what what God wants to do, what God can do, and what God will do if we pray the right prayers and unlock the right doors and find the right keys and do all the things. This is just a matter of praying hard enough, living into it, believing it.

Kyle 10:01

Yeah.

Randy 10:01

And I mean, I know I've got people at my church who still kind of some people would love for me to go back to that Pastor Randy, the the Randy who just praises guts out in front of everyone and cries and is praying against strongholds in the city of Milwaukee. Like I used to think that God was kind of giving us the keys to the kingdom in the city of Milwaukee. And so I'm in Milwaukee. Milwaukee is the most segregated city in the country. And I used to think, like, we are going to do this. Like this is something that we can and will do because we're going to pray hard into it, we're going to live into it, we're going to do all the things, and God's the kingdom of God is going to come. It's going to happen, and I'm convinced of it because of these prayers. I don't think that anymore. Um I've feel like I've lived too much life to to have like strong expectations that my prayers are my actions or my church or my you know, this moment is going to break through something as complex and historic and ugly and evil as segregation in a city. You know, and you don't have to be in Milwaukee to have these thoughts.

Kyle 11:15

Yeah.

Randy 11:17

And I'm realizing that um along with that kind of like resignation of like, I don't really think I'm gonna that we're gonna change the world anymore. I don't really think that we're going to completely rescue the the city that we live in that our church is inhabiting and that we're knocking down the gates of hell in, you know? If you I mean I talked about all this stuff. Yeah, I've heard you say that. Along with that resignation of like, actually, I'm not so sure anymore. Then the next question becomes prayer. And like, what was all that then?

Kyle 11:51

Yeah.

Randy 11:51

And why did we do it? And did I really mean it? And I think I really did. I think so. Um, but also if I think about going back to that place now, if that's what prayer looks like, I don't think I can do it anymore. Because if I would go back there, it would feel way more performative than authentic. And that's not a spirituality that I'm even remotely close to being interested in. So I think then for me now, where I'm at is that prayer has to become and it is becoming, but it has to become something different than what I did and what I gave people. Like I always talk about the faith that I was given and the prayer life that I was given. Yep. But me, as a pastor, I was giving people all these ideas and shaping containers around what prayer looks like, what faith looks like, what it looks like to be a Christian, and what it looks like to inhabit this place and the city and all that stuff. And when that starts crumbling, then it then the question is what does it look like now? What is what is what's left of prayer? And that's where for me, and in that episode last year, that was the tension is where my prayer life now is very, very abstract. Yeah, very contemplative, very contemplative.

Kyle 13:04

I think you even said silent, like, and I had a problem with that. You did, you yeah.

Randy 13:08

So that's yeah, and that's where prayer has had to exist for me.

Kyle 13:13

Yeah.

Randy 13:14

And it's kind of been a healing journey, it's bringing me back to prayer. Um, liturgical prayers spoken with my faith community, sometimes those are the most to me, the most meaningful prayers that I pray that I can think of. Yeah. When I'm praying, somebody somebody else has written this prayer, it's poetic, whether it's ancient or part of my tradition, or somebody who's just good with words and is a spiritual person wrote this. When I'm saying it out loud with my community, surrounded by my family and by my friends and by people that I don't know, strangers, but we're all saying this together, whether it's before the Eucharist or just saying it because we think we should, prayer has begun to change its shape. The shape of my idea of prayer has begun to change. And um not only has my prayer life changed, but my idea of prayer has changed.

Kyle 14:07

Yeah.

When Prayer Becomes Performance

Kyle 14:08

So I had some similar experiences of sort of experiencing what turned out to be a performance, both as like um nerdy kid in high school who wanted to be seen as eloquent. And so any, and of course, all of my spaces were Christian spaces, right? Grew up in the church, went to a Christian school, was hardly ever any I don't think I knew any non-Christians. I lived in Kentucky, of course. I didn't know no one who was like openly non-Christian until I went to college or yeah, college. Which even there I was ensconced in extremely zealous, turned out to be extremely Pentecostal uh version of faith where praying publicly was a big part of what we did. Yeah. Um we would meet as a group every morning at 7.14 as a stupid college student trying to drag your ass out of bed to get to a prayer site because of that like 2 Chronicles 7.14 verse. I knew it had something to do. Yeah, of course it was. Um and you know, if you wanted to be seen as like spiritually mature leader in the group, you'd pray out loud. Yeah. You know, it was silent, and but you knew who to expect. Um, and so it was very performative, and there was a kind of show of elo eloquence, you know, that went with it. And you could recall Bible verses on the spot and you know, use them in a way that seemed to apply to what was going on in the day.

Randy 15:32

You're like holding up a mirror to me right now.

Kyle 15:34

And yeah, and but eventually I I start I eventually started to feel dumb when I would try to pray out loud later in life. Like I can't think of anything to say here. Uh I don't think I got dumber. I just think nothing felt authentic anymore. Yeah.

Randy 15:49

Like I don't you know when did that start happening?

Kyle 15:52

I don't really know. Um I probably just got out of the habit, you know, and didn't have occasion to pray publicly a lot. Um, but then would find myself in a situation where I might need to pray publicly, like for example, at your church back when I used to like start off the service and stuff, and um just finding something much simpler to be more natural, you know. Um not showy, just if you want to ask ask for something, ask for that thing. If you want to state something that you think is true about God, state the thing. Um but really trying to focus on who am I talking to here and why am I doing like who is this for? You know? Um, because that back in the day it was for them, it was for the people around me, and it didn't really have much to do with me or with God. Um now I don't want to say that Penta I don't think you're saying this either. Pentecostalism doesn't have to be that, you know what I mean? But we have to be honest that it it disposes you to that in a in the forms of a lot of um the forms that worship takes in that tradition are lend themselves to that in a very significant way. And they also lend themselves to a kind of positivity that can become a foe or even a toxic positivity about you know how you should approach God, what you should think God wants in the world, how you should talk to God, how you should let other people hear you talk to God or about God, positive, positive, positive all the time. Everything is good. Yeah, um, and it's difficult to pray in that context about hard things or about suffering without then bringing it around in the end to something good, yep, something positive. And that's just not honest, right? Because humans don't always feel like that.

Randy 17:31

Yeah, yeah. And let me just say, like you, I mean, um, I mean, the charismatic tradition gave me a lot of goodness and beauty. I mean, just off the top of my head, it taught me that Christianity, my faith, is something that can be embodied and that I can experience, and that it's um it it it turned it a lot more relational in really beautiful ways. And what I'm speaking to isn't speaking towards one person or one stream in particular, but it's just this reality that the ironic thing is that we put so much into prayer, so much stock into prayer. It said so much about like how much prayer unlocks, how much the potential of prayer, and I mean, just over and over and over again, that it kind of the pendulum swung for me to say, but I don't see this in my real life. So while charism charismatic Christianity gave me so many gifts that I'll I'll take forever with me and that I'll teach my kids and my church, all that stuff, it's still kind of wounded me in this way of I feel like it's given me a limp with prayer that I wasn't expecting, and now I have to figure out how to how to walk fully again.

Kyle 18:50

Do you think maybe it's impossible to know, if you had been formed in a different kind of tradition, that you would have a a different limp, but still a limp? And I don't even like that phrase because it sounds a little ableist, but like that I would run into something eventually, regardless, that would make prayer hard because that's just the pr part of the process of spiritual maturation. Or do you think No, it was the charismatic tradition is kind of at fault here for like I could have avoided this in a different tradition.

Randy 19:25

I don't I can't answer that like concretely, but I I think the charismatic tradition is prone to running into walls when it comes to prayer, when it comes to faith, when it comes to healing, when it comes to the things that it's kind of built on. Yeah. Um you kind of if you're gonna if you're in that tradition, you gotta put all your balls in that yeah, in those baskets. And um I think it's just the recipe is there for a crises of faith about prayer.

Kyle 19:56

Yeah.

Randy 19:56

More than other traditions. And I'm not saying that I wouldn't have a problem with prayer because I think I probably would because I'm a human and life is long and it's complex. But I do think that the charismatic tradition gave me some unique perspectives that lent themselves to unique problems.

Kyle 20:14

Yeah, I I feel that. Yeah. While still loving a lot about that tradition.

Randy 20:20

And

Holy Spirit Moments And Absence

Randy 20:21

I still, and let me just say, like, I I have moments where I feel like I'm convinced I experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit in some supernatural, charismatic ways. Let me can I tell you a quick story? Yeah. Just real quick. This is for some of you who maybe are more charismatic, this is like, oh, that's child's play. But um on one of my infamous walks, thinking about the sermon series that I'm planning up ahead coming up in the book of Acts that I'm in right now, and I thought it was going to be about um that the book of Acts is this revolutionary movement of inclusion, really in line with what the way Willie James Jennings sees the book of Acts. We've talked to Willie, we talked about the book of Acts with him. It's beautiful, it's incredible. And I do think that's what the book of Acts really is. But as I was walking one night, I had this idea, and the thought came to me of like, I think this sermon series maybe should be about the Holy Spirit instead of about this revolutionary movement of inclusion. And as soon as I thought that, I just literally like kind of set it in my head from head, it started at the top of my head and it went down to all the way down to my toes. I felt this just like wave of chills go through me. And I was like, whoa, okay, what what what's that spirit spirit? And I just felt like, yes, this series should be about the Spirit of God and us following the Spirit of God, because that's what the book of Acts is. And that changed the shape of that sermon series. I mean, this is just like my job, right? This that it just changed things for me because I had that experience where I felt like the Holy Spirit was communicating to me in some way, shape, or form yep, you just hit it, and I. I might have even given you that thought, right? Or you had that thought and I want to I want to affirm that in you.

Kyle 22:05

Yeah.

Randy 22:05

That's kind of what it felt like. And as I'm wrapping words around it, I feel awkward and I feel a little bit embarrassed because it's not the way people in now our tradition in the post-evangelical progressive Christian tradition talk. We don't talk like this so much anymore. But I still had that experience a couple months ago. And I would tell you though that it was real as this conversation is. Um now what I believe about that, I don't exactly know, but I I I I'm choosing to believe that was a spirit affirming something in me. So what I'm trying to say is the charismatic tradition gave me gifts that I'm still walking in today, but also gave me some um it's tripped me up in ways that I'm still dealing with and trying to get over and I'm still tripping over still today.

Kyle 22:48

Yeah, totally. I've had similar experiences to that. And I yeah, I think they were vertical. I I, you know, I haven't nothing about me has changed to the extent that I would say that wasn't God or you ought not to do that, or that's I even think part something like that has got to be constitutive of a Christian life that's headed towards sanctification, or you know, what however you want to flesh it out. That's really important. Pentecostals have gotten that, they've emphasized that in a very healthy way. Yes. Also very unhealthy ways, but you know, there are other traditions who de-emphasized it, and so I think that's a very good thing. Um and I've had similar experiences. I've also had experiences where this the spirit was present by not being present, if that makes sense. Present by her absence, you might say. So I've I've been in situations where um you could call it a negative spiritual experience. I don't know. I just uh felt uh a deep emptiness of you know, God is not here. Maybe when you would expect God to be here, uh God is not, and and I think that can be indicative of something as well, or at least I'm not experiencing it, right? This feels like a void, actually. Yep. Um that's happened a couple of times too. And yeah, Pentecostal experience tunes you to that sort of thing. It can over-tune you to that, so you see it everywhere. Uh, but that's not to say that it's never something that you ought to try to practice. Yeah. And you know, there's ways to naturalize that, it's a kind of attunement to the situation that you're in, to what other people are feeling, whatever. Um, nonetheless, Pentecostal speech makes sense sometimes.

Randy 24:17

Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. So

Imagining Communal Liturgical Prayer

Randy 24:19

I don't want to just go on and on about prayer for, you know, podcast sake. I want to just ask you when you imagine, as you imagine yourself as a person of faith, as a Christian, moving into the future and integrating prayer into your life in some way, shape, or form, what ideally does that look like for you? Do you have a a picture or a concept or a Yeah?

Kyle 24:42

So when I asked you, like, could you can you think of a tradition where you might have avoided all this and been totally happy? You know, and I try to envision like what that might have been. I'm I'm probably kind of Catholic. Like I'm not Catholic in some very specific ways, right? And will never be. But um yeah, or or maybe Anglicans, and like prayer is a communal activity we're reading from a book. It's it's a book that we put a lot of thought into and we're very careful about, you know. Um, and we have forms that we do it liturgically together. And then also, you know, we pepper in our own thing from time to time, but very little emphasis is placed on the form of that or the style of that or the meaningfulness of that new thing that I just threw in, you know, or whatever, uh, or what the priest said when he wasn't doing an official thing or anything like that. And um, yeah, something communal, something more careful, um, something that's been planned. Which might sound sound very contrary to all that Pentecostal stuff.

Randy 25:40

Well just that's that's what I was gonna ask. Is if you're if you were listening to yourself now, if your 10, 15 years ago self was listening to this right now, would he say that ain't prayer man? That's not from you.

Kyle 25:54

Yeah, maybe. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But now I I it feels a little differently. It feels like that kind of thing creates the space where it can be authentically from me. Because I can choose to participate in it. Okay. And I can sort of enter into the interpretive process of those texts, and that's an authentic engagement on my part, right? Whereas, and it's not to say I can't still have a straightforward one-to-one conversation with God, whether other people are listening or not. Of course I can. But it's it's a way that, and maybe it's just my personality, I don't know. It's a way that I can engage honestly without then wondering if this is performative. Yeah, yeah. Because there's no room for it to be performative.

Randy 26:35

Yep. And I I do want to say, I think praying, I'm just calling them liturgical prayers. Praying those liturgical prayers can form and shape our own prayer life. When you get used to having that prayer language, that corporate communal liturgical prayer language, it kind of informs the way we interact with the world around us. And let me just say, I think that kind of prayer that you're speaking to, that communal faith community, we're saying this thing together, that liturgical prayer, I think that actually influences and shapes our own personal prayer life.

Kyle 27:09

Yeah.

Randy 27:10

And I think it gives birth to some of that as well. It gives me more of a desire to do it. It gives me more of a desire to engage with my faith community. It it makes a faith community for me feel more connected, robust, and then I do think it just gives fuel and shape to our own personal prayer life. And as a matter of fact, my own personal prayer life can look like reading out of a book of poetry, which is prayers.

What Still Counts As Prayer

Kyle 27:33

So last time we talked, you read a quote from I think it was Richard Rohr. Yeah, yeah. And I'd shout on it. Um figure. Yeah, I didn't want to. Um and I kind of um I think we came around to more agreeing than we than we thought in the end. Um, but it there was this tension. I just want to see if you've had any more thoughts about it since, or feel any differently about it today. Like I'm hesitant to call something prayer that doesn't include that thing that I mentioned at the beginning of this conversation where I'm just talking to God, I'm interacting directly, or attempting to, right, with the being um trying to have a relationship with. Maybe that means I'm sitting in silence like I would sit in silence with a friend, but their presence is the goal. Yeah. Right. Um, and it it seems like a lot of the attempts to make prayer sensible to sort of progressive types like ourselves, to make it seem like a desirable thing that you ought to want to keep doing or to try to, I don't know, defend it against some of the bad versions of it that we've all tried to get away from, is to make it about something else a little bit, like to make it about to make it more like mindfulness or more like contemplation or more like uh communing with nature or whatever, fill in the blank. Um and my you know, my pushback on that was well we could do that, but if we change enough of those ingredients, eventually it's not gonna be the thing. It's like yeah, I uh like this weekend I made an Indian dish, I made butter chicken because I have a goal to like master that dish. And so this is my first attempt. I'm not a cookie your version of butter chicken. I'm not a cook. Um, and so Emily laughed at me. She thought it was hilarious that I would start with something so difficult. But I love it, and so I want to get it right. And there are various, there are a lot of things you gotta get right, right? And there are a lot of tweaks and particular processes and particular ingredients that are traditional, and you could replace a lot of those, and it's much easier if you do, right? I could get a certain kind of spice from the supermarket rather than driving across town to the Indian grocer, for example.

Randy 29:47

But if I change enough of those, you can get the sauce in a jar for crazy.

Kyle 29:51

I could, yeah, yeah. It's not gonna be an Indian, it's not gonna be a butter chicken anymore, right? Eventually. Yep. And I feel similarly about prayer, like there are elements to all of that that are real and authentic in I think, you know, a sort of natural uh experience of prayer that just kind of springs from your being. Um like the kind of prayer you had when you first converted, you know, and God was alive and interesting and like a real like a real friend. Um and then over time that you know that wanes, and you start to try to think of ways to bolster it by rationalizing to yourself, is how I experience it anyway. Well, you know, if I'm if I'm really aware of my space, uh, isn't that really kind of prayer too? And it's like changing those ingredients one by one, and eventually it just stops feeling like prayer to me. So yeah, that's kind of what we were discussing last time, I think. So has has anything in your experience in the year since changed your thoughts about that at all? Are you still very much like uh no, I go on my nature walks, and that's that's what prayer is?

Gratitude Walks Creation And Eucharist

Randy 30:59

Yeah, no, I still go on my nature walks and um I pray a lot and sometimes I use words. Now that's you know that I intentionally am saying that to poke you a little bit. But um here's what I would say to that as I've reflected on it, Kyle, because I think that's a a fair critique and a really healthy thing to point out. But here's my like really simple explanation of it is that this is me rebuilding my prayer life.

Kyle 31:25

Yeah.

Randy 31:26

I literally, if I'm going to rebuild my prayer life, which I'm I think I'm I know I'm actively doing, I know that my prayer life looks a little bit different than it did last year, right here and right now. It feels more solid. And I but I still have those most of those practices. Like I was just up in a standing on in front of a lake that I've described to you guys before. I was just there two weeks ago, and I I felt like I was praying the whole time, and yet very few and um very similar words came out in my head in my prayerful experience, and they were mostly words of gratitude, mostly words of like thank you in different ways, mostly words of um I'm grateful to be here. I'm grateful to be to be connected to all of this. I'm grateful to be alive here. I'm grateful for this life. I'm grateful, you know. Gratitude was rooted in almost all of those prayers in what I'm explaining that that that situation. And I think that's really a microcosm of the rest of my prayer life, which is like I can right now, I can tell you I can show up to and be with creation. Um, and create when I say creation, I say that in a very intentional way, and I know it drives you nuts because I believe in evolution and all that stuff. But but I believe that like here's my experience is that when I'm in creation and in being mindful and attentive to it, I feel like in many ways I'm mindful and attentive to the the divine. And that doesn't mean that I'm some pantheistic, you know, believe that that tree is God. I just believe that God is in all things. And this is where the the richness of the mystics and the contemplatives kind of can they're tethering me to a life of prayer that is kind of the only shape that I can take right now, which is being present to and attentive to the life of the divine where wherever I am. And um, for me that's become prayer, and then more words get added to it slowly over time, but still I feel like I can show up to and with creation, I can show up to to and with the divine life. Communion, right? Like the Eucharist, has I feel like is inviting me into a prayer life that's more authentic, um, in that I'm taking in the mis in some mysterious way the body and blood of Christ and letting Christ dwell within me and centering Christ in and around myself. And um, that kind of shapes my life and it shapes my worldview a little bit and it invites me into a prayerful presence. That actually, the more I'm in those Eucharistic spaces, it becomes a bit more of a norm for me that I'm partaking in these tangible gifts that have been given to me that are metaphorically calling me into something deeper, and that feels prayerful to me. Yeah, and to me, all of this is what it looks like for me currently to connect with God. Yeah. Because to me, that's what a lot of what prayer is. And I still want to say, I still pray like my mom was in the hospital a couple months ago, off and on for a while, and it worried me. I prayed for her all the time. I pray for people in my church really regularly. I pray for my family really regularly. And I even as I'm doing it, I don't know if I'm affecting anything, I don't know if God's gonna be affecting anything, I don't know if this is unlocking anything. But it feels like a faithful way to love the people in my life. Yeah, it feels like a a way to hold the people in my life in my heart and before the God that I believe in, and the God that I believe loves them more deeply than I can ever imagine. Yeah, it kind of reorients the way I inhabit the world and show up, you know. And to me, that's whether or not my favorite philosopher agrees with it, it feels like I'm rebuilding my prayer life in those actions and exercises.

Prayer As Discipline Amid Doubt

Kyle 35:20

Yeah, one sometimes overlooked aspect of prayer, function of prayer is as a discipline. Prayer is a thing that trains you into a certain kind of mindset and a certain orientation towards other people. Um, to to hold someone in that way in your mind. Yes, and to think certain kinds of thoughts about them that are very directed and intentional, and wishing the good for them and hoping and verbalizing the good for them is a practice that will form how you approach people, whatever your metaphysical views are. So manifesting now, we're talking about right all along. Yeah, believe yourself into it, buddy. But no, I'm I'm hearing where you're going. No, but but yeah, it's a it's a practice that that that is one viewed as one of the spiritual disciplines for a reason. Like it makes you a certain kind of person. Yeah. There are other ways you could become a similar kind of person, but this is a pretty particularly effective one. Prayer has kind of a an ethical function too. And so I don't know if at this time that we've released this yet, if we will have already released the other episode that we recorded about faith and belief or unbelief, maybe that's been out already and you've heard it, and maybe it's coming out. So look forward to it. We don't know. In which case this is a small preview. But how does if it does, how does not being sure whether there is a person on the other end of this affect anything? Does it affect anything? Do you still see it? You know, it's it would still maybe still have that that kind of discipline function that I just described. There's lots of great things prayer could still do. Um and I, you know, atheists could have something that plays a similar role as prayer, whatever they want to call it.

Randy 36:59

I'd be interested in that, yeah.

Kyle 37:01

Um so has has that because I know that that's been happening in your life at the same time. Certainly has that impacted it at all?

Randy 37:09

Yes, definitely has. For me personally, I don't know how it couldn't. Um, because prayer was framed for me as such a um yeah, an exercise in faith that this person that you can you believe in is going to affect things in a positive way for the in the situation around you. So, yes, it has affected my perspective on prayer. However, prayers prayed in faith, that idea looks much differently to me now than it did seven, ten, twelve, fifteen years ago. And that just means that um faith looks different to me. So as my idea of faith has changed and evolved, as my idea of faith looks more like that integration of this these beliefs into the how I live and it shapes and influences and moves me forward as a human being, yeah, it certainly does. It certainly affects my prayer life, the way I see prayer, the the the amount that I pray, I would say my my faith changing, my belief changing, unbelief being something that I'm growing in comfort with certainly affects my prayer life. I don't like I don't know how it couldn't. And it's within that reality though that I want to reframe and kind of regrow a prayer life. And I don't know what it that could look like exactly. But I know what it like what it's doing to me now is that I don't want to end my day in any other way than taking a walk and being present and attentive to creation and to the creator in ways that kind of make me feel integrated as a human being into the world that I live in. Does that make sense? Yeah, totally. Yeah, I know that like it kind of recenters me, it recalibrates me, it it it clarifies things for me, it reminds me of things. It's I could keep I could go on, but you hear where like my faith is different and my prayer life is different, and they do different things to me and to my faith life, and I like where it's at right now, currently.

Kyle 39:13

Yeah,

How A Pastor Advises Prayer

Kyle 39:14

yeah. So really simple question. If some so you know people approach Jesus and said, How should I pray? And he said, Go do this, go say this, you know. Um how do you answer that question if somebody comes to you, assuming they're not trying to bait you, they're sincere, you know, uh, and says, Pastor, how do I how do I do this? What do you what do you tell them?

Randy 39:37

Oh, that's a conversation, you know. Like I we could we could like do it right now and say, like, uh tell me about what you're like it that's just a longer conversation, but I would just want to say, do you have any space in your life where you put down the screens and the phones and you have a little time to yourself? And man, I resisted just there saying quiet time, right? But do you have any time where you can just sit in quiet quietness and stillness and reflect on God, on goodness, on beauty, on life? And can you hold that space and hold the people around you prayerfully? And can you cultivate kind of a a discipline of I want to exercise, right? Like, and I want to cultivate a a space where I get for myself to check back in and to be aware and grow in awareness of my the reality that I believe that is God is everywhere and I'm I'm existing in and with Christ. Could you cultivate a space like that?

Kyle 40:52

Yeah, yeah. Do you feel any sort of responsibility given your vocation to to pray on behalf of others or to model prayer for others, whether you feel it or not, or whether it seems authentic to you or not? Does that make sense?

Randy 41:11

Yeah. I like it to be that.

Kyle 41:15

Okay.

Randy 41:16

I really bristle against like the idea that like pastors have a responsibility to do X, Y, Z. I don't love that thought, but I know that I can get around that in healthy ways. But um I can certainly say I would like it to be that way. I would like my church to know that I'm holding them prayerfully. Yeah. And that I'm holding them before God. Is that good enough?

Kyle 41:42

I think I mean I don't know. Like I think if it's honest, then yes.

Randy 41:47

Yeah, no, I think it's my responsibility to be my authentic self while caring and loving and shepherding and guiding this community, and I don't do that myself. Right. But I think those things are responsibilities of the job, and if I couldn't do those things, I I shouldn't do it. But I think prayer is complex enough that I I wouldn't want to reduce it down to say, if you're a pastor, you have to be praying for your congregation because that has looked different to me through the years, and yeah, depending on where I am in my faith journey. But I I do want to just love and hold and care for and um be walking with my my congregation in a way that I'm holding them prayerfully before God and whatever however that looks for me at that moment.

Kyle 42:32

Yeah. I guess I'm just thinking as like somebody who often does not believe, you know, central things about Christianity and who does not pray regularly at all. Okay. Um but it still feels good, and I don't mean like pleasurable, but like like an ideal of good. It feels right, that's better to be prayed for and to see someone else doing a thing that I have good reason to believe is authentic for them. Yeah. Yeah. But and I want to say, and this is where I'm a little unsure, that I would still think that even if they were lying. Or or even if even if it was sort of a a virtuous commitment to something that they do not experience internally for my sake. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yes. Like there's a there's a story by Miguel de Unamuno, and I'm not gonna remember the name of the story or even how to pronounce his name. Um, but it's about a priest, we talked about it with Brian McLaren once, who has lost his faith, but is still upholding the faith for his congregation, and it's deeply devastating, but also beautiful uh the sacrifice that he's making for them. Um and I I just went like a friend of mine uh not not long ago sent me a video of him praying for me and something like that would never be authentic to me. And I have honestly have a heart. Time believing it's authentic for him. But I must be, I don't know. Um, but the thought that it is is nice. Yeah, like it strengthens my faith in a certain way, like upbuilds in the way that Kierkegaard used to talk about to think that oh, that you know, people do that.

Randy 44:19

No, I can be real, do you? Yeah, I mean I will just say honestly, yes, I pray for people, I won't say all the time, but regularly, in in ways that like I'm I'm holding very loosely, I don't know what this is doing. But it's I don't know if it's like a a responsibility or a duty of my job, but I just see it as a sacred thing to hold. Yeah. Um uh and maybe that is part of my job, and that's the luxury of my job, is that I feel kind of pushed into thinking in these ways, and I feel pushed into considering this stuff. And I feel like it's a luxury of my job that there's an expectation that I pray for people, and so I do, and that k keeps me connected to prayer whether I want to or not. And so in that way, I would say yes. Like I do think it's at my my responsibility and I do that. Um, and I think that's actually because I'm the kind of person who would say, That's that's bullshit, don't do it, it's worthless. Yeah, and yet as I do it, it feels like that faithfulness that we have talked about together before of I don't know what my faith looks like actually, but this is me looking me wanting to be a faithful person to both my call and to following Christ, even if I'm not feeling it in the moment.

Kyle 45:42

Yeah,

Office Versus Authenticity In Faith

Kyle 45:43

yeah. This this is a thing I think there's a sharp divide between how Catholics think about this sort of thing and how Protestants think about this thing, or maybe it's just English people in general. Okay. Obviously, not all Catholics are English, but the ones that I know are either Anglican or or Catholic or like English, um, or heavily influenced by theologians from there. But like there's there's the office and then there's the person who holds the office. Sure. And that's an important distinction, right? And it could be the office of the Pope, it could be the office of the priest, it could be the office of the monarch, whoever. Um, and you act in certain ways as a holder of the office, regardless of your personal dispositions at any given moment. Yep. And you're you've committed yourself by taking on the office to a larger story of which you are you're sacrificing yourself to that story in hopes that it's true or in hopes that it's doing good in the world or whatever. Yeah. And if you come to believe that it's not, doesn't matter. You need to learn to shut that down. This is my very cynical read of it anyway. Yeah, yeah. Uh and Protestants have a real hard time about with that. Uh, and and yet, you know, I have the intuition that there might be something to do it. I don't know.

Randy 46:53

I like both ways, to be honest with you.

Kyle 46:55

Yeah.

Randy 46:56

Thanks for going there.

Kyle 46:57

I know that was weird. Not at all.

Randy 47:00

So I wanted to revisit our conversation about prayer because I felt like we weren't done with it. And to be honest with you, I still feel like that. Yeah. But I don't want to keep talking. I just think that I can just tell you this is like the real personal side of it for me. This is an unfolding in my life. Yeah, this is something that um I'm recovering and that I'm rediscovering, and it's kind of a joy and it's kind of daunting and scary all at the same time.

Kyle 47:25

Yeah.

Randy 47:25

Um, and it's a gift to me. Um, I'm gonna literally, like in 15 minutes, I'm gonna be walking and praying. And you know, like moving in between thinking about stupid shit and prayer. Yeah. And um I hope that's what my I I I'd like to believe that's what my life is gonna look like moving forward is becoming more and less familiar with the idea of prayer, becoming more and less fluent at the practice of prayer, becoming more and less interested in the idea of prayer, but always I'm hoping wrestling with it and discovering more and diving in deeper, because I think these kind of conversations and even these experiences where we feel like where you can say, I just don't pray, I still have hope that that is going to like give birth to a different kind of prayer life. So all I'm trying to say is, listeners, if you resonate with this, or if you think this is a really frustrating conversation that's going nowhere, we're with you. Yeah.

Kyle 48:34

When you said uh I don't want to keep talking about this, but I know that I will be. That that's kind of sums up my my stance on prayer at the moment, actually. Yeah. I don't want to keep doing this, but I'm gonna keep doing this. I like it.

Randy 48:47

Yeah, thanks for listening to a pastor and a philosopher walk into a bar.

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Randy 49:00

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Kyle 49:13

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Randy 49:21

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Kyle 49:29

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