Living on a Prayer? or, just Hooked on a Feeling?

Recently, more than one person has mentioned to me the concept of prayer as problematic. I have to agree with them. Not only has Deism made a great surge recently, especially among young people, who do not identify explicitly as Deists, but practically believe such ideas within the label of their various faith traditions (Don't assume this is a new idea here, Deism is a very Western view, many of our American "founding fathers" were Deists, not Christians. See: Thomas Jefferson); many Christians will have reasoned that the idea of intercessory prayer raises many questions of its own:

• If God is omniscient (all-knowing), why bother to tell God what is wrong?
• If God is omnipotent (all-powerful), wouldn't there be a "right" path laid out for everything already? Why would God change God's perfect mind?
• Is prayer just a placebo? What about all those times when prayer seems to "work?" What about all those times when it doesn't "work?"
  
• Or to put it another way, I was taught in Confirmation class something along the lines of "God hears all prayers, God is always listening, but that doesn't mean when we ask for something God will say yes." Is this any different from discerning God's will from "feelings" about events? Are we assigning meaning to coincidences as "answers" to our prayers?

I must mention that these are not the only kinds of prayer understood within the Christian traditions. One might center their prayer life on giving thanks, offering praise and other personal acts of worship, as well as the use of prayer in corporate worship services and other church body functions. These, at least for me, seem to function more as statements (or better yet, responses, as God is always the initiator) than questions, in cases when the prayer is not meant primarily to make requests of God.

I held onto the idea above, taught when I was confirmed Presbyterian, for quite awhile. "I can ask God for something, and sometimes I will receive it and sometimes not," I thought. "It's all according to God's will." This may be true, but if God does whatever God thinks is best anyway, from an all-knowing perspective of what is best, then why would my limited perspectives be adequate to make suggestions to God about what I want and need, who I want to be healed, who I want to find a job, who I want to continue living?

In college I did a project on C.S. Lewis, and while I am not one of those who usually falls back on Lewis (also by this time I had been a regular attender at a Brethren in Christ congregation for some time, and I'm not sure how sympathetic Lewis was to the Anabaptists), I did appreciate much of his understanding of prayer. One of his most helpful ideas to me, after presenting the problem as I have done , rests on the understanding of our role and identity (search for the words "making known," chapter IV is good) in prayer. The summary is this: God knows and sees all, and thus we shouldn't assume that we are making God aware of anything. When we pray, however, we consciously address God. We go from Things as in, "God created all things," to Persons, willing that God know us as such. We acknowledge our free will to pray to God, and become, in an oversimplified way, two Persons "meeting" instead of a Thing and a God-Concept. I think it's a good place to start.

As far as whether our prayers change anything, Lewis says this:

Can we believe that God ever really modifies His action in response to the suggestions of men [and women]? For infinite wisdom does not need telling what is best, and infinite goodness needs no urging to do it. But neither does God need any of those things that are done by finite agents, whether living or inanimate. He could, if He chose, repair our bodies miraculously without food; or give us food without the aid of farmers, bakers, and butchers, or knowledge without the aid of learned men; or convert the heathen without missionaries. Instead, He allows soils and weather and animals and the muscles, minds, and wills of men [and women] to cooperate in the execution of His will... It is not really stranger, nor less strange, that my prayers should affect the course of events than that my other actions should do so. They have not advised or changed God' s mind -- that is, His overall purpose. But that purpose will be realized in different ways according to the actions, including the prayers, of His creatures.

(Unfortunately I don't know where this comes from. Also, note that most Christians don't call those who practice other religions "heathens" so much anymore)
Prayer is, above all, an action, just as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned. As God makes us participants in His will (whether God "needs" us to do so is moot in this case) and in ushering in the Kingdom of God, our actions are, I believe, very much like sacraments. God's master plan may be set, but with free will our actions and the paths of our actions in the causal sense are not necessarily so. God works through each of our actions, including prayer, making good out of our mistakes and evils. Augustine said, "God judged it better to bring good out of evil, than to suffer no evil to exist" (anyone know the reference for this?). The concept of good coming from evil is found outside of Christianity as well, namely Buddhist thought.

So the action of our prayers is our participation in God's work, not changing the mind of God, but perhaps shaping the events of the world in the same way as our other actions as the Body of Christ, with Jesus as the Head. And, as Lewis indicated in Letters to Malcolm, we need not worry too much whether we are praying for the right things, because just as we intercede in our prayers for ourselves and others, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us.

Prayer is certainly part of the mystery of faith, but not so mystical and abstract as to render it practically useless if we make it active rather than passive, and part of our personal and communal relationship with the relational Triune God who has been made known to us, just as we relate to anyone else around us in action and direct communication.

Upstart

Well, this has not been quite as fruitful of project, initially, as I hoped. Quite a long gap, as blogs go, after my first two entries. As I enter Spring Break, I hope the extra free time will translate into more writing opportunities. I also have a lot on my mind, and thus a lot of topics to explore. Sometimes I need a little push in one direction when I'm not feeling decisive.

Is there a theological question anyone out there has been wrestling with, or wants to discuss? I'd like this blog to work both ways, both as an outlet for my own thought process and as a forum for discussion. I'll give it a day or two, see what comes up, and maybe write in some other veins while I'm at it.

Let's be friends. If you have a blog on here, add me. Anonymous questions are OK too, initially.

-Tyler

Please don't talk during the movie

Spoiler alert for The Sixth Sense. Yeah, I went there.

Let's be reasonable. If you're going to watch a DVD with some friends, or go to the theater for a new release, there's going to be some people talking. It always happens.

• Some of them are continuing conversations from before the film started.
• Certain films will lend themselves to critique of how far one can suspend his or her disbelief, like a motorcycle-on-fire that jumps a little too far, a strange break in character, or dialogue written by George Lucas.
• Some people will be constantly referencing other films the actors and crew have worked on.
• Some ask way too many loud questions about the plot, like "OMG are they going to fall in love?" or "Is that the same cat from before?" or "Bruce Willis isn't really a ghost, is he?" or "What did he say? I couldn't hear because the person next to me was talking."

Not all of these instances are inappropriate, depending on the film and the timing. A rule of thumb, however, is turn your cell phone off and shut up. Here's why:

Given the benefit of the doubt, films are expressions of art. Like a novel, in the case of narrative films, you're going to have characters, plot, themes, dialogue. A good film will make you care about those characters early on. It doesn't take much; a moment of vulnerability or sentiment might be all. Michael J. Fox just has to appear on screen, and I'd follow him to the ends of the earth. Investing in the characters, combined with other elements, can immerse you in a good film and make you less aware of your immediate surroundings. It sounds corny, but films can make you forget your problems for a couple hours.

Personally, it doesn't take much to get me into a film. I sometimes care about characters that are a little 2-dimensional for other people. I can overlook it if a filmmaker is taking him or herself too seriously. One well-done performance can make me love a film that's weak in other areas: I had a great time with Lady in the Water, for example. I don't think this means I have poor taste; I can recognize a generally good film and a generally bad film. It's just that I'm pretty forgiving, because I'm stubborn in suspending my disbelief. This is why I would not make a good film critic.

*This is where I put on my overly serious face.

When a film has achieved this goal of immersion, which depends on both the film and the viewer, and the experience has become the primary focus, I find a lot of talking, or loud talking, and other unnecessary noise to be distracting and irritating (and not just because I have ADD). I find a good metaphor to be a deep REM sleep. When I'm sleeping and someone speaks loudly nearby, whether intending to wake me or not, I pop out of sleep almost immediately. My first reaction is usually anywhere from minor annoyance to hostility. They might not even be aware I was sleeping, or they might be heavy sleepers and not imagine they have disturbed me. Either way, the effect is the same. They have removed me from the state of sleep, and my focus is now on them, against my will. If they continue to talk or make noise, my focus will probably remain on them. If they continue to talk or make noise after I have gotten up and made them aware they have woken me, then they have prioritized their experience over mine.

The same thing happens to those who appreciate film and other performance or multimedia art. Talking or trying to multitask will most likely break the bubble of immersion for those around you. Depending on their level of patience, they may react negatively, like a peaceful sleeper might when jostled awake. If they ask you amiably to stop distracting them, and you continue, you are prioritizing your experience over that of others. Perhaps you have not fully grasped how you are affecting those around you, but this is still the case. Make sense? I can't tell you how many times the talking in the Union at Messiah has risen above the level of the artists' microphones, detracting from the performance and the experience of the audience. I try to be patient, but I want to yell,

"Could you have this conversation somewhere else? You're being inconsiderate, rude, and disrespectful to us and especially to the musicians,"

or more likely,

"Are you kidding me?! Shut. Up."

But I don't.

I don't think this entry was intended as just a forum for faceless complaint, but to help process some intuitive feelings I have about watching films and performances, or experiencing art in general. I realize that people experience these things differently from me, and that I can take some things too seriously. Often multimedia is just entertainment, and not worth getting worked up about, and most of these feelings are never articulated by the average movie consumer. On top of this, I don't believe art is always logical or objective, just like I don't believe we can prove or disprove the existence of God in any kind of universal logical discourse. I do believe when language falls short to bring seemingly conflicting understandings together, there is often grace in those situations. We can interpret the same reality differently, but not alone, or by compromising others' participation.

Shalom and Welcome

"I establish this blog as an apparatus by which I might engage the wider audience of lay-theologians, artists and world wide web-equipped people in discourse as I describe and perform my own theological-artistic project," he bellowed, planting a flag. Then chastened by his own words, he draped the flag over his tabletop and cooked dinner, speaking sparingly when spoken to.

I looked up what people who know rules thought about ending a sentence with a preposition, and found an article denying it was a real rule in English. The article was written on my birthday.
I think it's a sign.
But still, a preposition is often not a good word to end a sentence with.

I won't deny that this blog was created in part because I am currently enrolled in what seems to be the most important, and final, class of my undergraduate career: Contemporary Theology, with Dr. Richard Crane at Messiah College. When one is engulfed in a sea of so many new ideas in such a short period of time, one often needs further outlets to begin the process of internalization and discernment, often within the Christian community itself. I hope this blog will serve in that regard.

This blog was also created for reflection on film, music and art of all kinds, as well as the language we use in theology, philosophy, science and art to give meaning to those things.

As the great theologian once said,
"Let's light this candle."