Anne Lamott is a Christian writer who isn’t afraid to be raw when she lays out her struggles in life and faith. She leads with her heart. Lamott likes to categorize most prayers into three types: help, thanks and wow. She actually wrote a book by this title published in 2012, but you can find these concepts throughout her work. 

Lamott first expresses the help prayer as, “Help me. Help me. Help me.” In this category are prayers technically termed prayers of petition or intercession. When Leigh or I stand in front of you and take the joys and concerns of the meeting to God it’s mostly in this help category, but also sometimes includes thanks.

In a November 2012 NPR interview with Lamott, she said help “is the great prayer, and it is the hardest prayer, because you have to admit defeat — you have to surrender, which is the hardest thing any of us do, ever.”  We have to admit we can’t do things on our own.

How do you say it, though? There are times when wording for prayer comes easy. Sometimes it feels like we know exactly what we need and we can just ask for it. Sometimes there are short prayers without a lot of words, but with deep emotion. A simple “Lord, help me,” is enough. I regularly pray for protection–for God to watch over my family. Similarly, others pray: Give me the strength to get through the day. Heal my sick friend. 1 John 5:14 says, “If we ask for anything in agreement with God’s will, God listens to us.” Similarly we are told in our passage for today that “the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

Yet, prayer is a mystery. We don’t know how it works nor why it doesn’t always work. I know a man named Matt from a retreat team I was on. He had 4 golf ball sized tumors miraculously disappear from his head. This was a huge part of his faith, What I don’t have an answer to is why it only works sometimes. Others pray just as fervently and still die. Like Job’s friends we might feel like they’re doing it wrong, but the problem is within us. There’s no straightforward reason their prayers did not get fulfilled.

It’s easy to give up on these sorts of prayers—prayers of petition. You can feel silly, hypocritical or downright disappointed. Some of us completely abandon prayers of intercession. Asking God to do things for us can feel like we are trying to turn God into a gumball machine. Prayers go in and miracles come out. Yet there are people around the world who find them deeply meaningful. When you or someone you know is in a deep crisis these prayers can grow in their importance. 

Thanks prayers frequently fall into the category of praise and worship. We thank God for the good things in the world. We thank God in the midst of hard times for strength and growth in patience or wisdom. Thanks prayers can be wordless. We just appreciate the world.

Lamott says, “Thanks…can be [the] pettiest, dumbest thing, but it could also be that you get the phone call that the diagnosis was much, much, much better than you had been fearing.” Thanks can be for the smallest thing. I’m behind someone at the grocery store that has only a few items. Thank God. It can be something huge. Thank God my son survived that car crash.

Taking time to be grateful goes beyond some perceived need by God for our affirmations and helps us to approach the world with a more positive attitude. God doesn’t need to hear how great God is nor how wonderful God’s reputation is. If we are to concern ourselves with God’s reputation then put feet to your prayers and live lives worthy of honor, admiration and respect so that people might honor God because they see God’s impact on your lives and your impact on the world not by excessively wordy spoken prayers. 

We, on the other hand, deeply need a grateful approach to the world that offering thanks brings to us. We are the ones who need to take time to see wonders and say thanks. Being grateful helps us to find happiness. Being grateful helps us to set our course towards what is good and noble rather than letting evil set the terms and framing.

Wow prayers are the sort that Richard Rohr frequently invites us to notice happening to us. We experience amazement. We become aware of the vastness of space and time. We know deeply and vividly how much we are loved. For Lamott, “Wow is the praise prayer. The prayer where we’re finally speechless.” Richard Rohr says, “It is primarily about changing our mind so that things like infinity, mystery, and forgiveness can resound within us” (102).

This is hardly an exhaustive list and is more dipping your foot in the water than heading into deep waters. Whole books are written on the subject and classes taught as well.

There is an addition to this list. There is a sense of prayer that does not fall into any of these categories. This is our focus for today.  Sometimes prayer for us happens another way. Prayer can come from and through Spirit. 

Spirit is described in a number of ways in the Bible including Advocate (John 14:26, 28, and 15:26, 16:7) as well as Breath and Wind (many times). As Quakers we are comfortable with Spirit as Guide and Inner Teacher. We are less familiar with Spirit as Advocate. In the Gospel of John, Jesus promises we will be given an Advocate when he leaves. This Advocate is the same one we see as Teacher and Guide, but is something more.

Many Christian groups are comfortable with one human praying for another to God. Some even look for the ancestors to pray for them. Much less familiar is the prayers of Spirit. Spirit prays on our behalf. Spirit brings us help in times of trouble. Spirit defends us against judgment. 

As Quakers we sit in silence waiting on God. The stillness sometimes comes easy and there we can rest. There is nothing like being centered down when you can achieve it. Sometimes, though, we want to pray but we cannot find the words. We reach for that shelf in our minds only to find it’s empty. We need another to pray for us. 

Sometimes the gears in our minds will not stop spinning. This is when we need the Advocate to pray for us. We may be in the midst of a crisis.  Sometimes tragedy overwhelms us even after the busyness and nonstop action has gone. We can be overwhelmed with grief for the world today from politics to the environment. Hope can seem out of reach. We cannot grasp what a solution might be nor even what is wrong. The whole thing can be too intense. 

Then we can rely on Spirit to pray for us. There is a great groaning going on everywhere–creation, humanity and even Spirit are groaning as everything is redeemed. All is brought from death and decay to health and abundant life.

As the scripture says, Spirit will intercede for us with groans too deep for words. When we have no words Spirit speaks for us. Spirit connects us to God. It can transform your understanding of the meaning of prayer if you let it.

Paul may have been thinking of Spirit as praying to God as King or Father, but I invite you to think of Spirit as praying to the one who is Ground of All Being, the unknowable God. Jewish mystics call it “ein sof,” without end or less literally, the Infinite. We are in awe. Our minds cannot grasp how much greater than us God is. This is God beyond God and Light beyond Light. We are not without an Advocate and Guide just as Jesus promised. I want you to picture this moment. Spirit is there right beside you, holding your hand, praying for you–standing when you stand arm around your waist, kneeling when you kneel hand clasped in hand–before the Great Mystery.

Queries:

• When have you experienced Spirit praying for you?
• When have you felt Spirit praying through you?
• What form of prayer is most meaningful to you?