Teach Me How to Pray

“If you are in a hospital bed, then you are likely experiencing a crisis,” I often tell patients that are struggling with anxiety. The spiritual care/chaplain technique I’m using is reflecting and normalizing feelings. I encourage families and patients to treat their situation with care, treat themselves with compassion, get some food, try to rest, and postpone unnecessary things to another day. If you find yourself in a level one trauma center, try not to worry. Yet folks do. We all do. We can’t help it. This is when many of us pray- because it helps.

Here's a secret about prayer: you don’t need to be a person of faith to benefit from it. As someone told me recently, “I don’t even know if I believe in God, but prayer still helps me.” Prayer is many things, and fundamentally it is a mental/spiritual/emotional connection to something bigger than ourselves, something hallowed. Prayer is also a way to communicate with our entire selves (body/mind/spirit). When we pray, we feel less broken, more whole, and hopeful. Prayer is a way to force the sickly and addictive ego to submit to our better angels. When we pray, we are open to something gracious and loving, which we may not even have a name for yet.

My grandma, Joan, taught me to pray when I was in kindergarten. She had me recite the “Our Father” and “Hail Mary.” She was a Roman Catholic. My grandma, Margie, and grandpa, Owen, who were LDS, taught me how to petition pray; this is freeform and non-prescriptive. Petition prayer comes in handy at the hospital bedside, since most people who ask for spiritual support need to have their pain and fear spoken aloud.

Both recited and petition prayers are powerful and comforting. In my practice I use both. I have a lavender-colored notebook with laminated pages of prayers that relate to most situations that I encounter at work. I have several prayers for different kinds of dying processes, prayers for the baptism of babies who make it and those who don’t, benedictions, reconciliation prayers, and prayers written by Saint Augustine and St. Teresa. When possible, I provide a unique prayer for patients as well, when they ask. Many, maybe most, chaplain visits don’t include prayer, yet it is available as a spiritual intervention when requested.

When a patient tells me that they don’t know how to pray, I say, there are two perfect prayers. The first prayer is “Help me, God.” The second prayer is, “Thank you, God.” We can ask Spirit to assist. Follow that with appreciation, and there is a beginning for a spiritual practice. It can be simple. God doesn’t need for it to be hard.

Open Questions: Did anyone teach you to pray? What would you add to that lesson?