Praying Lessons From a 5-Year-Old

Part of my role as parent of my young daughters is teaching them about prayer.  This is what I chose to do when I chose to have my girls baptized and I do not begrudge every individual parent to make their own choice to do or not do this for themselves and their own unique family.  That said, when faced with the task, I actually took on the role of “prayer-teacher” quite hesitantly.  It is one thing to promise to do it – it is quite another to figure out where to jump in.

 It also makes you analyze your own childhood go-to prayer.  Mine was this:

Now I lay me down to sleep

(you know this one already, don’t you?  Not very original, I know…)

I pray the Lord, my soul to keep

If I should die (gasp!) before I wake

I pray the Lord my soul to take

If I should live another day (what do you mean IF??)

I pray the Lord to guide the way.

I’ve modified this prayer for my daughter because otherwise it’s too creepy and I don’t believe it is the best use of a child’s time to contemplate and worry about their own mortality in the scary monster-filled darkness like I used to.   Here’s the version I say with my daughter every night in bed

Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray the Lord my soul to keep

Let angels guide me through the night

And wake me with the morning light

Then I ask her who she wants to ask God to bless tonight and what she would like to thank God for and if there was anything else she wants to pray about.  This is the part, however, where I get to learn from her. 

I always thought that teaching your child to pray was a one-way street – my Yoda to her young Jedi (apologies to high school and college boyfriends for mixing two religions in that metaphor).  However, in handing down my childhood prayer as a benign starting point, she takes that framework into her child-wisdom and spins it into poetry.  I’m pretty sure God gathers the angels around an as if there is an old-timey radio show on whenever it’s a child’s prayer time.  In fact, when I lame out & forget to do a prayer with my daughter, I’m sure I can hear a resounding ‘Awwww, man!’ from above.  My daughter has a spiritual gift of prayer that I can see clearly and I look forward to encouraging it (mostly by getting out of the way) all her life.  

Here are some of the lessons I have been lucky enough to learn from her:

·         Sometimes your prayer has just gotta be sung

Of course we sing prayers at church and at gatherings all the time, but none of them are like her random-melody’d high-voiced, angel-ish offerings to God of all that is on her mind at the time.

·         Don’t forget to pray for yourself

At the end of her prayers, My daughter always says: “And also, please especially bless – really blessy-bless BLESS…MY-SELF.”  Of course, once we become adults, it is age-appropriate to be a little less narcissistic in the emphasis, right?  But she really loves herself.  And why shouldn’t she?  She’s fabulous!  God is in her.  And God is just as “in” all of us.

·         Don’t be shy about blessing God

I’m sure God appreciates it amid the 24/7 sea of special requests from everyone in the whole universe.   I picture God zapping God’s self in the face with the same blessing God has been dispensing for eons, nonstop, but, like the sprinkle of water in baptism, it feels refreshing and renewing and God smiles a little tender smile down at her in our little bed.

·         You don’t always have to be right

Many times, my daughter’s prayers are an inventory of all her toys, and I cringe.  “Please bless my stuffie, Pookie, my barbies, my American girl doll, my dollhouse, my bike…” etc. etc.  She doesn’t realize that it’s not the “correct” thing to pray for, but who is to say what is correct?  Every time she starts blessing all of her things, I blush in the dark, ashamed when I think of all the things that she has – all the crap that we buy that we don’t need when so any others are truly needy – how lucky we are and how spoiled we are by not being able to see it – and it motivates me to back off from the Target blitzkrieg for a while and keep things in perspective.  Give a little more offering (to church or other organizations) in lieu of our *blush* first-world Starbucks habit.

·         You don’t always have to understand what you are praying for

Once, my daughter prayed for Tent City.  We had just delivered care packages to a community of folks who live in tents and move their encampment from location to location – usually on church properties that give permission.  Most of the residents have jobs.  I assume that none of them can afford housing. It is January and the wind, the rain and the snow and other crazy weather is frequent.   My daughter prayed that the people of Tent City would all find homes because they didn’t have a house to stay in while they are waiting to find their houses, like when we stayed at Grandma & Grandpa’s house when we were looking.  Processing that new information in a way she could understand and then praying about it, even though she didn’t fully understand it is honest.  I pray for Tent City from the point of view of understanding what is going on for them, when I am totally wrong to think I have the answers.

·         Be lavish with your blessings

She prays for God to bless “everyone in the whooooole wide world”.  Indeed, dear child.  Indeed.

…And from my 2-year old:

·         Sometimes just holding the posture of prayer is enough

As we pray at the dinner table, my youngest daughter, who doesn’t say any prayers yet, will hold her hands folded while we all listen to my oldest daughter lead the prayer (or my husband or I).  As my youngest folds her messy food-crusted hands and steals sly glances around the table at all of us with closed eyes, I know that this is enough and sometimes silence and listening and witnessing prayer is the hardest skill to learn.  When I’ve asked her if she wants to say a prayer and I prompt her with ”thank you Jesus, amen” or a great sign language prayer I taught her, she shakes her head shyly, ‘no’.  That’s OK, baby-boo.  Your witness is enough and your time will come when you will feel moved to let your spirit spill out into words, song, dance, art, writing or whatever other way you choose to connect to God.  You are enough.  And so are we all.

Our Father who art in Heaven

“Our Father who art in Heaven”.  This is the beginning line of my favorite prayer. The tradition of this prayer is to call on God in the male form.  In fact, for most of my life, I saw God as a male parent,  though I've also heard God refered to as male royalty and also of course  the voice in my head that I hear is the booming voice of James Earl Jones.  God the father weaves in and out of most of the prayers and liturgy that I participate in.  I know the argument for why we say ‘he’ by heart: either we use it to mean ‘he and she’ or just because it’s easier or because it’s an antiquated, beautiful language, dictated by God HIMself.  Of course there is also the also feminist argument that God is a woman - black woman, in fact.  And won’t the conservative evangelical preachers be surprised when they get to Heaven and see her.  My mom used to murmur, “Our fathermother who art in heaven” quietly to herself when we read the Lord’s prayer In church.  She was speaking from the feminist wave in the 70’s, and I am well-acquainted with the traditional feminist arguements about God as a woman.  My 90’s feminist womyn’s view tells me to view God through the lens of historical ancient goddess worship and other female-centric religions throughout history.  A male god subjugates the feminine earthspirit, etc. etc.

The thing is, even with all my knowledge and background, I see in my heart and in my head, God as a man.  A father-figure to pray to and to understand me.  Specifically, Michael Landon in Little House on the Prairie comes to mind.  Or did.

The following passage – which I have heard a thousand times – changed God's voice for me:

“In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.  And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.  And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased”

~Mark 1:9-11

Normally,  in the movie of the Bible in my head, this is the part where James Earl Jones says in his best Mustafa from Lion King voice, “this is my son”.  However, these are not the words of actions of a Lion King.  This is a Mama Bear.  In fact, "Mama Bear God" TORE open the heavens to point her dovey finger down and shout “THAT’S MY BOY!!!  THAT’S HIM!!”  and then she calls him “my beloved”.  That is what I call my daughters when I call them my baby-boo.  That’s what you call someone you want to snuggle, stroke their forehead and give neverending kissies to.  This exchange between God and God’s son is, among other things, a parent screaming ‘way to go, son!’.  As a woman and as a mother, I understand this.  Does that mean that God is a mother?  The feminist view was correct?  No.  I know Dads that are just as clamourous to claim their Baby-boos.  Dads that are tender and would tear open heavens to softly but insistently let everyone in the room know this is their special lovey-lamb.  It’s not the pat on the head, “you have obeyed, thank you little man, now go to bed” disciplinarian God-dad that traditionalists would have us believe.  True, God the father has already been touted and envisioned in liturgy and the Bible, but this is a different kind of parent.  A parent acting out of pure love and a child’s buouy in this sea of chaos.

Here’s what I think: This all is beyond gender.  Gender is a human-made designation. God is God.  God as the Holy Spirit is God as GOD on the Earth.  On the other hand, God as Jesus is God participating fully with the human experience as a human (or humyn, to give a nod to my feminist sisters).  Jesus was a man on the earth, not a woman, which always used to hang me up – why couldn’t he have been a woman?  Why couldn’t he have been married?  If you follow that through ot it’s logical extension though, why couldn’t Jesus have been gay and straight and abused and whole and shy and outgoing, etc, etc,  Jesus can’t be everything everyone has ever been and still have an authentically human experience.  I don’t have to cut my head and get stitches to actually feel the same pain that my daughter felt when she fell and hit her head – knowing exactly how to be calm in the way she needed while I was exploding with worry inside.  There are a thousand examples from a thousand parents, though I am not saying that a person has to be a parent to understand this empathy, because I also don’t have to go through a miscarriage to listen to a friend’s tormented experience and walk with them during that time – be there and and feel for them with my whole heart – my whole being .  However, AS a parent, Jesus’ commandment to love one another resonates with me.  It’s also not an unattainable goal because I have experienced this kind of love with my children.  However, my gentle challenge is to do this for the rest of the human race.  Others may feel differently: they give to the world’s people, but feel alienated from their own family, for example.   God made us all deliciously interesting and unique whackadoodles, whom God loves with a force in it’s purest form.  The point is what it always boils down to in the Bible and with what Jesus tells us: Love.  This is always the right answer.  I see no love in the Disciplinarian style parent-God who happens to be a man.  I do see love in the God that is the parent in me.  This is because God IS in me.  I am created in God’s image to love.  And so are you.

Martha's Work Is Never Done...

I get the story about Martha in the Bible.  Most women do.  She worksworksworks and tries to put on a good party for Jesus without any help from her sister. Having just put on a Thankgiving dinner for 14 relatives and friends, I know that It takes a lot of time and energy to put on a good gathering.  It’s not just the cooking.  There are countless other details people take for granted: making sure everyone has drinks, getting the appetizers out on time, making sure the kids have something to do or else they’ll start getting into trouble, and fending off the annoying phrase “can I help with anything?” from people who don’t want to do what you really need them to do, so you have to think of easy fun things for them to feel like they’re helping.   Basically staying ahead of everyone’s needs the entire time.  That is on top of cleaning, cooking, serving and maybe even eating yourself.  And you have to make sure everyghing happens at the right time.  If you don’t let people know when the meal is served, how will they know when to eat?  Oof!  5 o clock – time to lead a prayer so that people can dish up – and then encourage the first person to go through the buffet line or else everyone stands around, unsure of who should go first.  This is just a normal party – nothing Martha Stewart.  I’m sure Martha from the Bible wasn’t even trying to be like a Martha Stewart.  She was just trying to please others, show her love for them in the language that she knew – entertaining - and maybe even try to be a good disciple by facilitating a gathering for others to hear Jesus’ words.  Plus, Jesus did raise her brother, Lazarus from the dead.  She had to feel a little bit of obligation about that.  How do you repay that?  You should at least have them over for dinner – but you know that Jesus almost never comes alone.  He always had an entourage as and other hangers-on that stuck around to hear his words or touch his robe – and you know that THEY never RSVP’d. 

All this and then Mary abandons her at showtime.  She just sits and listens to Jesus’ words - rapt with attention.  It was not even a woman’s place to sit with the men and listen to what they had to say!  All of a sudden she was embracing some Greek philosophy and becoming like a man – her own sister!   When Martha came out of the kitchen to question Mary – I imagine Martha wiping her cracked, rough hands on her apron, cheeks flushed, probably smelling of smoke from the fire, eyes sort of glazed from stress and lazer focus on making this party a success, and if it was me – also nursing her own glass of wine in the kitchen to lamely try to join in the party without leaving her station.  When Martha tried to gain some support from Jesus, she did not get the answer she expected.  Mary has chosen what is better.  MARY.  She-who-has-not-helped.  What happened after that?  Did Martha throw up her hands and storm out?   Did she paste on a too-wide smile and say, “Yes Lord” or “You know best…”  and back out of the room?  And then talk behind his back?  As a feminist, I’ve always sided with Mary’s rebellious choice of sitting with the boys and broadening her mind and nurturing her relationship with the Savior.  However, as a Mom and a wife – in the life that I have made for myself in reality – I all-too-often fall into Martha’s role.  Not because I am in a feminine servitude, but because I actually love entertaining.  Like Mary, it is a language for me to demonstrate to people how much I love them.  The only problem is, people often don’t notice the traditional ‘women’s work’.  If I were a man, you can BET it would be noticed – all the attention to detail, etc. but since I am a woman, it is just expected.  All the invisible work that women do and never get credit for – it is a very very old story.  However, I am not going to go into all that martyrdom.  There was only one martyr.  I am doing the work I do by choice.  But why do I choose it? And how can I speak this language of love and have people hear it?   And not go crazy?

I think that Jesus was not telling Martha to get back in the kitchen or ‘you chose wrong - and I am under the impression that the apps are serving themselves.  I think he was telling her not to forget to be present in the moments that are important.  Don’t to be a slave to yourself because a slave does not get to hang back and enjoy the (sometimes awesome) party that she created.  This hits home as a parent, and also as a volunteer with children’s programs in my church.  I help plan out & put on events for families, teach the kiddos about God through carefully thought-out crafts, songs, etc.  but then my own children have to entertain themselves while I work for others’ children and, honestly, for recognition by other adults that I did a good job.  Did Martha feel any of that?  Wanting recognition?  Because if so, I’m sure she learned that even when you get the recognition, it’s never enough.  Especially when you, yourself are not on board.  But having to teach Sunday school, volunteer to lead church activities AND keep a meaningful connection with your children during all that is sometimes too much to accomplish.  It’s some kind of myth that you can do it all that leads automatically to the guilt that women are all too good at.  It’s enough to make you cry into your casserole. 

How do you strike a balance and not be offended when Jesus says, “enough with the percolator already – come out of the kitchen and be present without checking the clock for the next event.  I am here.  With you.  Right now.  I will not be here forever.  Be here with me in this moment that is a gift to both of us.”  Now, you know where this goes.  This line of thinking usually leads you down that path of guilt about how your kids won’t be kids forever and you’ll look back all too soon and realize that they’ve grown up – blablabla and more crying into your jello mould.  That’s all true, but what can we do about it in real life?   Advice books suggest you treasure every moment – and that is worse than the Martha Stewart line of thinking - that you need to make everything from scratch and prepare every detail.  We all know that behind the scenes. Martha (Stewart) really delegates jobs to her staff.  If we followed her example and delegated to  all the people standing around like the disciples were that day, we would have more time to be present in the relationships that are really at the core of this get-together in the first place. 

Here’s the other dirty secret about Martha (or so I am completely assuming about her, based on my own self).  She is keeping busy so that she doesn’t have to fully participate and come up short in a relationship that is not as “easy”.  Keeping busy with laundry and housework and planning get togethers and volunteering at church is way, way, way, way, way more easy than loving someone.  Especially someone that is hard to love.  Being a mom is the most important job that I am doing and I love my kids so much that I feel my heart burst and enlarge daily, yet I fall short of my own expectations and then beat myself up about it.  Not only that, I when I do my job right, they’ll need me less every day.  It is easier to mire myself in the extraneous event planning and volunteer work than participate in a ”losing” battle.  In a way, Jesus was a losing battle too – and maybe Martha somehow understood that.  Maybe she was nervous about the political response to his miracles, or heard rumors from his enemies.  Who knows.  But Jesus “lost” to go on to something greater – something that no one could anticipate or fully understand.  It is also impossible to anticipate or fully understand the fate of your children as well – how your parenting will affect them – will they be in therapy (probably) or will they go to college (also a high probability).  I am constantly surprised that God chose me to raise kids.  How could God trust me with something that important?  If I fail…well failure is just not an option.  And yet it is sort of inevitable because life is not perfect.  Participating in the business of being busy gives me an excuse to not participate in participating in a relationship that can never be the perfect picture I wish for.  However, if Martha could trust and take a step into unknown territory by loving a losing battle and trusting being revealed imperfect in her most important priorities, she will see that it is freeing to love and be present in the moment.  There are countless gifts I have received from my children, from myself, from God by participating in this “losing” relationship.  Rocking my very sick child when no one else can console her,  being one of their unquestionably safe people to trust in life, being able to nourish them with my own body and learning that some of my personal sacrifices for them can actually be a joyful act instead of an act of self-deprivation.  It is an ongoing battle to believe in myself as a parent, but if I don’t, who else will?  Jesus.  But I need to get on board too

My baby has woken up, so I guess my time for writing is at an end.  I don’t know when I will get to write again, but her smile as she wakes up and looks at me is irresistible.  My older daughter has rested her head on the upper part of my arm and has stopped trying to make my fingers type weird letters.   The warmth from her cozy head is life-giving to my cracked and dry soul, as is the baby’s unbridled smile with teething drool and here-and-there tooth terrain.  I think about the need to be present to the moments that God gives -  I am called to be present with others as well as to serve and be busy and participate in adult life. However – others need the chance to serve too.  Even your children need a chance and the way that children serve is by loving-  and loving unconditionally.  So put on a CD and dance with your kid.  Or your husband or your sister.  Smell them (yes, breathe in their scent and ignore the cue for a diaper change).  Be aware of how it feels to hug them.  Because Jesus is in every one of us and to take a moment to really be present with any one of God’s people is to be in the presence of God.  You don’t have to orchestrate anything or spend a long time, but stealing a moment when it presents itself is a start.