Practices...

Last week on vacation, I didn’t do very much (I suppose this is what vacations are all about!).   Didn’t even care to watch a lot of TV.   But… I did happen to catch the early parts of the Orlando Bloom “Kingdom of Heaven” movie.  The movie is supposed to be about a blacksmith who goes off to fight in one of the Crusades against the Muslim leader Saladin as tension builds between the Christian Armies and the Muslim Armies.   This movie is “loosely” based on history… and by lose I mean reeaallly loooossseee.   A person named Balien DID exist… but mostly not like in the movie!  

I had seen this movie before, so I knew what the movie was about and what to expect.    But I saw something new in it this time.   There is a scene where a knight/leader is showing Balien around… who’s who, and what’s what in Jerusalem.   He shows him a vista as they look over a wall in the Holy City.    As he is speaking about the land and it’s people, they overlook a large group of Muslim men in rows, praying on their prayer rugs.  As the camera came to rest on these men, Balien asks about Islam and Christianity living side-by-side in Jerusalem.   I remember being a bit intrigued by seeing the men in prayer.    It sparked some memories.   As I saw this scene, I thought about how we live the faith… overtly live the faith… how we make our faiths real to us on a daily basis… or not. 

I remembered back to 1992 when I lived El Paso Texas.  My wife and I were attending a local Lutheran church there, involved in the life of the church – we taught Sunday School there as part of our responsibilities.  There were other people involved with Religious education as well.   Because there wasn’t that much room in the church building for each Sunday School class to have it’s own room, some of the groups met in a large room at the same time.    One particular Sunday I remember one of the other teachers was showing the students a book, about other world religions.   She got to some pictures of Muslims men praying on their prayer rugs, and she said something like “Look at this.   Isn’t this silly to be praying like that?”    The point was that this mode of prayer was not only less valid, but silly and pointless.    I think in her ignorance she did not know that she was criticizing her own Christian tradition.     We have a long tradition (now almost dead through lack of practice ironically) of segregating certain times of the day for prayer.   It’s called “Praying the Hours”– where prayer times divided throughout the day help the pray-er take time to be with God… and hopefully be more open to God’s presence more throughout the day as well.   But, again, almost no one does this anymore.   But, even if this weren’t in our own tradition… how can any form of prayer be silly, pointless, or less valid than any other method?          

I’d heard an NPR radio program about 5 months ago dealing with the election issues.   The invited guest on the show raised the issue many have still asked about President Obama’s religion.   He mentioned that some still believe that Obama is a closet Muslim.  I remembered be said there’s no such thing as a closet Muslim.   Basically, if you’re a Muslim, you really can’t be “in the closet” about it.   His point was, if you are a practicing Muslim, and you live out your faith… then you can’t hide being a Muslim.   The Muslim faith calls it’s adherents toward overt actions.   One of them being Islam calls adherents to pray five times a day.  You can certainly pray in private, but you have to stop what you are doing at those times in the day to actually prepare yourself for prayer – it takes some time, preparation for prayer in this way involves ceremonial hand and feet washing – and then actually take time to pray.    During these times of prayer Muslims are called to put aside other things, step away from the “normal” world, and prepare themselves to step into the presence of God.   This would be hard to do while you’re driving.    Now, can Muslims pray at other times – like while driving?  Yes.   But there is a practice, done five times every day, of taking time from the normal schedule to sit and be with God in this very concerted way. 

Wow- when I saw that movie it struck me… again… how little time we take – concerted time – time specifically set apart – to consciously be in the presence of God.   Do you remember when the last time was that you actually stopped what you were doing, pushed away the paperwork, stepped out of the “normal” routine, and did nothing else but actually be conscious of being in the presence of God?  

For many Christians, perhaps far too often, prayer sometimes involves us as we are involved in the middle of something else, or we might find ourselves squeezing it in between other things.   Except Church on Sunday mornings!    But even there, you don’t know how many people I have heard over the decade and a half of doing this church gig that cannot wait to get that hour over with!   “I’m leaving in an hour… whether you’re done or not!”   “I have other things to do… other things to get to – hope you won’t be preaching too long. ”   It didn't seem like coming to church to them was about being with God and the people of God, as much as admitting they were only going to "pay" one hour... and that's it!    Well, if that’s your attitude… then why come at all??

At the Army Chaplain School – back in 1997 – I made friends with many people of different faiths, from Muslims to Jewish, to Orthodox Christians to even Missouri Synod Lutherans! ; )   We had some form of devotional service/worship service every day.   The way the Army divides the religious world is basically this way: Christian (Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox) Jewish, Muslim, etc. – and that’s how our worship/devotional times were divided up.  So, a group of us decided to visit each others services/devotional times.    We visited the various other Christian services, the Jewish services, and the Islamic services (I think that’s all the traditions represented when I was there from a class of about 60 officers).    I remember that as being a pretty powerful experience – being exposed to different ways of seeing God, of getting a glimpse of how other traditions “think about” or relate to God, of how they place themselves (both physically and metaphorically) in relation to the divine (Muslims virtually prostrate themselves before the divine, Jews stand in prayer but belief that ground they are standing on is Holy – a metaphor that ALL ground is God’s and therefore Holy).   There were powerful words, music, chanting.    All in all a very powerful time of learning and growth.      God is the God of all for sure! 

I remember one time our class was in the field for an exercise.   We were broken down in platoon areas, and one of the other officers in my squad was a Muslim- the only one in our Platoon.  In the evening of the first day out there, LT Muhammed (a black American from the Midwest) called to me to ask where East was – I looked at the compass on my watch-band and told him what direction it was.    He began to prepare himself for prayer, and prayed, right there in front of all of us.        

A lot of Islamic examples in this writing, but the thing is, that scene in the movie mentioned at the beginning sort of stuck with me.   It brought back a lot of memories… it reminded me... to take time.  It reminded me how it’s SO EASY to NOT take time and remember, to NOT take time to pray.    It reminded me that prayer can often be what we make of it… and although praying “on the go” isn’t bad – it’s still prayer…   prayer can certainly be so much more!    

I wonder how much more it could be for us if we were conscious to take time to prepare our bodies, our hearts, our minds, before we present ourselves to God?    I wonder how much more our prayer times could be if we took time to stand, or sit, or lower yourself before the Almighty God…  and remember!    And what would it take (from us – our time, our schedule) to make this into a life-practice?   Is what this would add to our lives worth the things it would cost us to put this into practice?    

I wonder.