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Saturday, February 17, 2007
Sara Miles's Take on Prayer
The following was extracted from this article.
Editor's note: At 46, Sara Miles, a left-wing, secular journalist and former cook, found herself an unlikely convert to Christianity. She joined St. Gregory's Episcopal Church in San Francisco, where she turned the bread she ate at Communion into groceries for a food bank that now feeds over 450 people a week. The following excerpt is from her memoir about what she calls her "unexpected and terribly inconvenient" spiritual awakening -- "Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion."
By Sara Miles
Jose and I met for lunch at a small cafe with outdoor tables one afternoon, when he was in the middle of an excruciating breakup. We sat on the patio and talked, picking at some complicated California sourdough-and-vegetable sandwiches while the fog came in.
Jose was in analysis then, and seeing a dozen patients, and serving as the medical director at a community mental health clinic, and writing scholarly papers on Freud, and doing energetic yoga for hours every morning, and generally overachieving, but he couldn't fill every minute, and whenever he paused, the heartbreak would pour in. "Maybe I should go sit at the Zen center again," Jose said. He was a small, handsome man with wiry hair and little glasses and perfect posture. His eyes were wet. "I'm not sleeping so well anyway; I might as well get up at five, what the hell."
We finished lunch, and I took Jose's hand. "Jose," I said, "you should pray."
As soon as I said it, I felt like an idiot -- worse, like a proselytizing busybody who knows, without ambiguity, what's right for everyone else. Jose looked genuinely surprised. Then he put on his analyst face. "Hmm," he said. "What do you mean?"
What did I mean by prayer? I didn't mean asking an omnipotent being to do favors; the idea of "answered prayers" was untenable for me, since millions of people prayed fervently for things they never received. I didn't mean reciting a formula: I loved the language of some of the old prayers that were chanted at St. Gregory's, but I didn't think the words had magical power to change things. I didn't mean kneeling and looking pious, or trying to make a deal with God, or even praying "for" something. What was I telling him?
"Um, well," I said. I was embarrassed. Then I looked at Jose again, and the word tender filled my mind -- tender as in sore to the touch and compassionate, at the same time. After my father had died, Jose had listened to me cry with the deepest empathy and patience, not trying to "comfort" me but just being present. As tenderly as I could, I said to him, "I really don't know. I don't know what I believe or who I'm talking to. Sometimes I just try to stay open, sort of. Especially when it hurts. And I try to -- I know this is corny -- but I try to summon up thankfulness."
Editor's note: At 46, Sara Miles, a left-wing, secular journalist and former cook, found herself an unlikely convert to Christianity. She joined St. Gregory's Episcopal Church in San Francisco, where she turned the bread she ate at Communion into groceries for a food bank that now feeds over 450 people a week. The following excerpt is from her memoir about what she calls her "unexpected and terribly inconvenient" spiritual awakening -- "Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion."
By Sara Miles
Jose and I met for lunch at a small cafe with outdoor tables one afternoon, when he was in the middle of an excruciating breakup. We sat on the patio and talked, picking at some complicated California sourdough-and-vegetable sandwiches while the fog came in.
Jose was in analysis then, and seeing a dozen patients, and serving as the medical director at a community mental health clinic, and writing scholarly papers on Freud, and doing energetic yoga for hours every morning, and generally overachieving, but he couldn't fill every minute, and whenever he paused, the heartbreak would pour in. "Maybe I should go sit at the Zen center again," Jose said. He was a small, handsome man with wiry hair and little glasses and perfect posture. His eyes were wet. "I'm not sleeping so well anyway; I might as well get up at five, what the hell."
We finished lunch, and I took Jose's hand. "Jose," I said, "you should pray."
As soon as I said it, I felt like an idiot -- worse, like a proselytizing busybody who knows, without ambiguity, what's right for everyone else. Jose looked genuinely surprised. Then he put on his analyst face. "Hmm," he said. "What do you mean?"
What did I mean by prayer? I didn't mean asking an omnipotent being to do favors; the idea of "answered prayers" was untenable for me, since millions of people prayed fervently for things they never received. I didn't mean reciting a formula: I loved the language of some of the old prayers that were chanted at St. Gregory's, but I didn't think the words had magical power to change things. I didn't mean kneeling and looking pious, or trying to make a deal with God, or even praying "for" something. What was I telling him?
"Um, well," I said. I was embarrassed. Then I looked at Jose again, and the word tender filled my mind -- tender as in sore to the touch and compassionate, at the same time. After my father had died, Jose had listened to me cry with the deepest empathy and patience, not trying to "comfort" me but just being present. As tenderly as I could, I said to him, "I really don't know. I don't know what I believe or who I'm talking to. Sometimes I just try to stay open, sort of. Especially when it hurts. And I try to -- I know this is corny -- but I try to summon up thankfulness."
Labels: Christianity, prayer, religion, sara miles
