Prayers and Murmurs

Prayer is as natural to [man] as speaking, sighing and seeing, as natural as the palpitation of a loving heart; and actually that is what prayer is:
a murmur, a sigh, a glance, a heartbeat of love.

Ernesto Cardenal
Cited in Christian Mystics

Matthew Fox follows up on Cardenal’s observations with these questions:
“What is your definition of Prayer? Would it include a “murmur, a sigh, a glance, a heartbeat of love?” Are prayers only set phrases to be read from a book, or listening to someone else repeat those phrases on our behalf? Or is it “as natural…” as speaking, sighing and seeing?”

Cardenal is saying that any acknowledgment or expression of love is prayer. If prayer has become a dull, rote exercise in devotion, it may be necessary to return to the “loving heart” and leave the printed page aside.”

Prayer, by how genuine and authentic it is, resonates with the” sighs of the human heart” and with what Cardenal and Fox conclude which is that prayer needs to flow Spiritward; and that it comes less from the polished written word, and more likely comes out spontaneously from our earnest expression of our reality; an all-inclusive reality, that holds within it our hopes and fears, our compassion for others, our concern for justice, our self acceptance, and our aspirational understanding of unconditional love, which is of God.

Prayer, in that way, is the most human thing we can do…

Looking back over my life, I can remember a then kindly grandfather who said his prayers and ask me to listen to his words.

Additionally, I had a very pious set of aunts who would never even think of missing Mass. Maybe the worst was the persistent coercion of CCD classes that required us to memorize prayers and statements of faith, without even a passing concern for how we understood them or how we applied them to our lives!

There was, for me, a church that encouraged ignorance-one that chose loyalty and fear over instruction and spiritual formation.

There was a polite shelving of religion in everyday life, and it was only brought down or used in times of sorrow or crisis; and there was the persistent hypocrisy that all one had to do is attend Mass, and then all would be right and good…

Once I started my spiritual journey, it took a decidedly Eastern approach as I was introduced to chanting, mantra repetitions, bells and bowing etc., to accommodate the rituals and wonders of a new perspective on faith and religious practices…

When I returned to a more inclusive wisdom approach to the Christian Story, I sought to understand what the great mystics comprehended or experienced: To know that my prayers were not in service to worn out, worn empty institutional teachings; but If they were earnest and sincere, they provided me with a more direct way of attunement or alignment with Divine truths, that I keenly was trying to embody and exemplify.

With few exceptions, I have become adept at imperfect practices, erratic allegiances or routines.

However, I still enjoy chant, dance, and poetry, that includes my sighs and my reverence, my stirrings, longings, and desires as my formal interest in theological treatises and arguments continues to wane…