In September, on International Peace Day, I was asked to join a group of clergy and other folks in a kind of peace vigil punctuated by prayers. In our company were Buddhists, Sufis, Jews, Celtic spirituality practitioners, Hindus, Native Americans, Christians, and others. I read something from our hymnal, written by a Unitarian Universalist, as an example of our form of prayer. To my surprise, Mike Ignatowski was invited to the same gathering and asked to say a prayer on behalf of the Network for Spiritual Progressives. I smiled to myself and wondered what Mike would offer, him being an ignostic and all. (An ignostic, according to Wikipedia, thinks that other theological positions assume too much about the concept of god and maintains that first we must determine what we mean when we say god before we can determine whether or not god exists. Unable to do that, debating the question of god's existence is a bit of a waste of time.) Anyway, when called upon, Mike shared some inspiring readings. The afternoon got me thinking about prayer though and I remembered this age-old question: To whom do Unitarian Universalists pray? Answer “to whom it may concern". You laugh, but why?

What do such jokes say about us? Are we prayer-phobic? Do we so closely associate the idea of god with prayer that if we do not have a belief in a personal god we cannot pray? Have we rejected prayer as something that other religions do? Do we even know what prayer is? Does it matter? Why is this important?

The last question first. Coming to terms with traditional religious language is of the utmost importance to us for two major reasons. First, we Unitarian Universalists have something of great value to bring to the table of interfaith dialogue. We respect different religious beliefs and do not think that we, or anyone else, has a market on the "truth." This year the theme in our religious education classes is world religions. We teach our children about other religions because we value diversity, we celebrate religious pluralism and we know that promoting respect for all people and their faith is a way to peace. Further, we have an acute awareness that in our own communities, not everyone believes alike and because we know that, we also know that we cannot assume anything with the language we use. Our language has to be inclusive.

Examples: If I remember correctly, in watching one of Bill Clinton's inaugurations, I heard a Christian minister pray before, and on behalf of, the entire nation and close the prayer in the traditional Christian way, "through Jesus Christ our Lord." Nothing wrong with that, except in an interfaith setting, not everyone believes that Jesus Christ is Lord. Praying in that manner excludes such people. I had a wonderful discussion with Darlene Kelly, a Methodist minister, as she and I led prayer at the Network for Spiritual Progressives. She was careful not to pray through Jesus, but she prayed in a way that clearly assumed everyone believed in god. I mentioned that in our congregation I could not make that assumption and she was shocked. She had operated with the mindset that religious people all believed in god. When she next offered prayer in that forum, I noticed that she opened up her language to encompass both god and no god.

Because we Unitarian Universalists cannot assume, we learn to speak in ways that leave space for many kinds of beliefs. It serves us well in our own communities and in interfaith settings. Further, familiarity with the languages spoken by other people will benefit us even more and we are in a good position to do this. That means understanding what others mean by prayer, how they pray and why they pray.

Secondly, and more importantly, we ourselves will benefit by looking at these religious words with new eyes. Words like prayer, grace, sin and salvation have a strength and a wealth of meaning that goes far beyond any one religion's use of them. What, then, might prayer mean to Unitarian Universalists? How might we do it and why?

Such a consciousness shift, such words, could present some of us with a challenge. We UU's have had an ambivalent relationship with religion, with religious words, with religious practices and this ambivalence has hampered our ability to plumb the depths of our own spiritual lives. Yet, as Laurel Hallman reminds us, "If the Religious Existential Reality is 'grounded in the experience of existence', . . . then we had better find ways to say that which is deeper than we can speak. . . . We live more deeply than we think. . . (and therefore people need an) opportunity to name their their relationship with Life in relational words." (Images for Our Lives) We need to find the words.

More than once in our congregation a discussion has arisen about the term "Religious Education," whether for children or adults. Over the years some have objected to the word "religious." At the same time many of us have a longing for something more, something substantive, something real, ordinary yet extraordinary, something "spiritual" both for ourselves and our children. We want the juice and not just the dry cracker. Yet by placing ourselves outside of a religious context, we block our own ability to express our deepest truths, and we can find ourselves stuck in a longing that has no outlets. I think it might be helpful to look at prayer, not as something that belongs to others, but as a practice, possibly as old as humankind itself, that might also have relevance for us.

So what is prayer, anyway? Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said, "Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living." Prayer is an expression of our deepest responses to life. As a response, prayer is a form of communication. Our responses fall into four categories, which someone has described as Wow, Thanks, Oops, Help me and Gimme, which are two sides of one concept. They may sound simplistic, but I mean them as responses that well up in us from a place we didn't even know existed. They are responses to life events, ordinary or extraordinary, that touch us, move us, change us.

"Wow," for example, is the awe and wonder we might experience at seeing the sun rise, or feeling love, or participating in the birth of a baby. In other religious terms, wow is a prayer of praise, or adoration. "Thanks" is a response we might make when we wake up to live another day, or when we escape something terrible, or when something wonderful happens. Others call it a prayer of thanksgiving. "Oops" means we blew it, and we regret it, we could use some forgiveness. In other religions it might be a prayer of confession or expiation. "Help me" occurs on those times in the hospital when the ones we love are in the emergency room or when we think life is no longer worth living. "Gimme" can range from let the candidate of my choice win the presidential election to let there be an end to war. A prayer of petition.

If prayer is a form of communicating our responses to life, with whom or what are we communicating? Is it god, the universe, ourselves, something else? I'm not sure it matters with whom we think we are communicating. It is the very act of consciously communicating that opens us. It opens us to an awareness of connection with something or someone greater than us, by whatever names we call it: god, or life, or love, or spirit, or higher power, or energy, or the universe, or the unknowable, or humanity. Prayer is a response to the world outside us, a response which comes up from deep within us.

Which is how our Sunday services can contain prayer, although we don't call it prayer per se. Our time of meditation gives silent space for what is important in us to emerge from within and the moments of prayer in the service give words to our response to it. We speak our "wow" in our opening words when we say we are connected in wonder and joy, to mystery and miracle in the universe and in each other. We extend "thanks" in From You I Receive and in our generous giving in the offering. We do "help me" and "gimme" at the beginning of each service when we ask to be reminded of our highest aspirations and to bring our gifts of love to all. We call for love and kindness as we sing the children out each week. We ask for each other's presence when we share our joys and sorrows and in the words that end that part of the service. The songs we sing are forms of prayer. We just don't do "ooops," which is something for us to look at.

Among the reasons our services feel powerful to some are these expressions of response, spoken and sung and silent. Many think that prayers must be addressed to god. I would suggest that that doesn't have to be the case. Unitarian Universalists don't have the same ideas and beliefs about god, so it's difficult to pray to god. Which god? This is a "to whom it may concern" kind of thing. Nevertheless, it is possible for us to express our deepest responses to life with a variety of prayers, and we do.

And in our lives beyond Sunday mornings? Do you pray? People sing their prayers, they speak them, they dance them, they use silence. Each morning I name something I am grateful for and I set an intention for the day. When I walk the dog, I am invariably struck by something beautiful: the light, the Rondout, the sky, the song of birds and peepers, you name it. I think of it all as prayer. Writer Anne Lamott notes, "Here are the two best prayers I know: 'Help me, help me, help me,' and 'Thank you, thank you, thank you.' A woman I know says, for her morning prayer, 'Whatever,' and then for the evening, 'Oh well,' but she has conceded that these prayers are more palatable for people without children." ". . . I have come to think that the word "prayer" has almost as many meanings as there are people who pray. For some it is a conversation, a speaking to God, (however one understands that word); for others it is speaking to oneself; and for still others it is speaking aloud “ to all who are gathered together, or to no one in particular." (Pat Hoertdoerfer) Dorothy Day, a Catholic social activist said, "I believe some people “lots of people “pray through the work they do, the friendships they have, the love they offer people and receive from people. Since when are words the only acceptable form of prayer?" Many people pray with silence. Novelist Pico Iyer suggests that "Silence is something more than just pause; it is that enchanted place where space is cleared and time is stayed and the horizon itself expands. In silence, we can often say, we can hear ourselves think; but what is truer to say is that in silence we can hear ourselves not think, and so sink below ourselves into a place far deeper than mere thought allows." "Almost every activity done with attention and presence can be a form of prayer" says William Segal. In The Summer Day Mary Oliver writes, "I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down/into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,/ how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,/ which is what I have been doing all day./ Tell me, what else should I have done?"

How one prays is not the issue because there are so many ways to pray. To whom one prays is not the issue because prayer is a response to life, as we understand it. It's the consciousness of praying, the awareness that we are praying that makes the prayer. It's the knowing that we are experiencing "Wow," or "Thanks," or "Oops," or "Help me," or "Gimme." It is the expression of our experience in ways most meaningful to each of us. It's the consciousness of the experience that allows the deeper response, that puts us in the flow of the interconnected nature of life. When we feel connected, we feel accepted, and whole. That's what prayer might mean for us, if we open up the definition and find a way to own both the practice and the word. "I am now persuaded," writes James Carse, retired professor of history and literature of religion, "that speaking . . . from your heart is the only real religious issue there is. Learn to pray, and all else follows. It is not the content of the heart that matters, only the ability to speak from it."

When I lived on Long Island and attended the Garden City congregation, the interim minister once noted that he did not pray. People reacted badly. What do you mean you don't pray? What kind of a minister are you? So I am here to tell you that I do pray, I pray consciously, in the ways I have explained. Do you? When you pray, are you aware of it?

But what's the point of prayer? Do we really believe that if we pray for world peace it will come? Do we really think that if we pray to win the lottery we will? What's the point? What does prayer do? Unitarian religious educator Sophia Lyon Fahs has noted, "Many of the past generation and many today have found three abiding values in prayer: the quiet meditation on life, the reaching out toward the universal and infinite, and the courageous facing of one's profoundest wishes." Prayer acquaints us with ourselves and in doing so, it changes us. The expression of prayer, the consciousness with which we respond to life can transform us. The intentions and wishes, the "wow's," the "thanks," the "oops," the help me's and gimme's" of our prayers raise energy; they stimulate us.. They put us on a path of thought and action, whether we know it or not. What we pray for, we move toward. In that sense if I pray for peace, I move toward becoming peace. Studies have shown that when we pray for someone else's healing, our prayers have an effect. Prayer helps us to feel the interconnected nature of life and when we feel it, we are better for it and we make the world better for it.

If this way of thinking about prayer is meaningful to you, may you mindfully express your responses to life in a way that mirrors your spirituality, that allows you to know yourself more deeply and to connect with that which you believe is ultimate. May your prayers transform you. May we all have a sense of wholeness at the core. May we be complete and of one piece, within, and without. (after Howard Thurman) May it be so.

Closing words adapted from Jacob Trapp

To pray is to stand in awe under a heaven of stars, before a flower, a leaf in sunlight, or a grain of sand. To pray is to be silent, receptive, before a tree astir with the wind, or the passing shadow of a cloud. To pray is to work with dedication and with skill; it is to pause from work and listen to a strain of music. To pray is to sing with the singing beauty of the earth; it is to listen through a storm to the still small voice within. Prayer is a loneliness seeking communion; it is a thirsty land crying out for rain. Prayer is kindred fire within our hearts; it moves through deeds of kindness and through acts of love. Prayer is the mystery within us reaching out to the mystery beyond. It is an inarticulate silence yearning to speak; it is the window of the moment open to the sky of the eternal.