Bishop Hughes reflects on how simple, honest conversations with God can deepen our faith and help us grow more comfortable praying in our own voice. (Time: 3:49.)
Video Transcript
This is Bishop Hughes in the Diocese of Newark, and I want to talk with you about prayer. In part, it’s because it’s summer Sabbath. Our schedules are lighter, we have a little bit more flexibility, we’re taking vacation time, we have space where we can think about our spiritual lives without some pressure or without feeling we need to accomplish something, but we can ask questions like, “What do I need to be more connected to God?” “How could I be refreshed by God?” “How do I grow deeper in my faith?” And summer gives us a chance to not only ask those questions, but to explore some of the answers. I gave you some examples in my last blog post. This one, I want to think more about prayer.
Prayer is on my mind, not just because it’s summer Sabbath, but because we are Episcopalians, and our faith, our theology, our liturgy is rooted in the prayer book. Everything that we believe about God, we believe about being church, and we believe about being Christians in the world, you can find in the prayer book, and most of the prayer book comes directly out of holy scripture. So, these two things are very close together, the Bible and the prayer book. And we rely so heavily on the prayer book, and there are prayers in there that are absolutely lovely and speak to every, almost every occasion that comes up. Our reliance, though, puts us sometimes in a position where Episcopalians do not learn how to pray using their own words, and my hope and my prayer for you this summer is that you will spend time praying in your own words.
Now that could start in private. It can start when you put yourself in the presence of God, whether that’s in your prayer corner, in your backyard, while you’re driving, or when you are sitting in a quiet place where you can simply be in God’s presence. That can start by talking to God out loud. Just getting used to the sound of your own voice, and the ways that you would talk with God. Prayer sometimes is conversation. It’s us saying the things we need and hope for, or we’re thankful for. It’s us imagining, along with God, what the world could be like. It is us turning to God in our greatest hopefulness and in our worst despair, and we use our own words to do that. I’m not saying don’t use the words of the prayer book or don’t use scripture. I am saying, though, let’s gain some confidence in using our own voices as we pray.
It is no secret that my hope is that every Episcopalian in our diocese would become so adept at praying out loud, so comfortable with praying in front of other people, using their own words and in their own voice, that when somebody asks who will pray for us, whether that is in the parish hall, at a Bible study, or in a backyard, at a ball game, or in a board room, that when someone says, “Who would pray for us?” that it’s an Episcopalian from the Diocese of Newark that just starts praying, doesn’t even stop to say, “The Lord be with you,” or “Let us pray,” or even “I will,” they simply start to pray. The way to get to that, though, is practice, and practice can start simple. It can start when you sit in the quiet with God and talk to God about what is on your mind, what is troubling you, and what you are hopeful for. The prayer book has words for you, but God has given you words to use too. Amen and amen.
