Don't have a prayer in the world

I've been tasked with thinking about prayer before my next appointment with my counselor. It's not like she's a cruel person who just dreams these things up. I have the vague topic of "prayer" as one of my goals during these sessions. But, it is a very uncomfortable topic for me that I have avoided with an aversion reserved for occasions like reaching for a plant in your garden and disturbing a snake. Either that or the feeling you get when you lick a 9-volt battery. Prayer gives me the heebie jeebies. What I haven't worked out is why.

Part of my aversion might be that I haven't exactly figured out what God's job really is, but it doesn't seem as though the Creator came up with the first call center. I think that distinction would have to be attributed to the evildoer (either that or some enterprising business person with an affinity for cubicles).

But there's something about the image of a call center that seems to fit the notions of prayer I frequently see in others. There's the complaint line, where one can share lamentations. The help desk, where one takes issues and hopes for better things after the system reboots. The sales desk, where one barters for a better price for the things one wants. And there's the line that seems to get very little use. It's the line where one can share thanks.

Seems like the only times the compliments hub on the switchboard lights up is when the caller has received a favorable result from one of the other lines. It's a transferred call. Rarely does a call come in directly. Instead, there's some asked for product or service that is delivered to the order-taker's specifications and the call transferred on. Too often I wonder if the caller is somehow hoping that the favorable feedback will result in a gift certificate for a future purchase to be sent in the mail in a sort of divine quid pro quo.

I know, all this thinking about how I perceive prayer through the eyes of others doesn't get to what it is I think it means to me. For two weeks now, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about this. Anytime I'm not actively working on something else, it seems as though this has been running in the background, like a virus scan or backup software program. Today when I brought up the "prayer" window I had minimized, this is what I had on my screen:

• Prayer is the moments when I'm walking on the trail and my dogs spontaneously tear around in a fit of joy.
• Prayer is the moment in communion when I feel my soul might be in communion with the saints in my life who have departed this world.
• Prayer is when I've been with dying loved ones and have slowed my breathing to match theirs and we've had long silent moments where I've laid my hands on them and felt the flow of energy between us equalize, when the distinction of where I end and the other begins becomes meaningless.
• Prayer is that short span of time when I'm doing my sorry attempt at running and, despite a nagging throb in the knee or tweak in the ankle, everything just feels right.
• Prayer is when I lose who I am as an individual and am fully in the moment.
• Prayer is when the cat climbs on my lap and settles in for a snooze.
• Prayer is when I look at what's happening around me and the only thing I can think is WTF???
• Prayer is when I'm embracing one in pain and know there's not a single word that can help any more than my simply being there.
• Prayer happens more than I acknowledge, but it is rendered speechless.

Maybe that's one of the issues I have with prayer. I put food on the table through my ability to put words to the page. Prayer, when it is really happening in my realm, has no words. When I force words upon it, I have taken away its power. When I try to utter a prayer to the world, I find I don't have a prayer in the world.