Colossians 1:1-14

In our prayers for you we always thank God, for we have heard of your faith and of the love that you have. We have not ceased praying.

What does it mean to pray? What is a prayer these days? 

Here it can be hidden lips forming names beneath masks. It can be well collected collects from marked pages. It can be a name spoken followed by acknowledging nods. It can be a struggled pronunciation of an unknown region. It can be chat bubbles. It can be silence or Alleluias.

What is prayer?

CPE taught me a lot about prayer. It taught me and my uncomfortable Episcopal self, that sometimes unformed extemporaneous prayers are needed, sometimes you just have to let the words come, or not come. Sitting with someone that first summer of covid when trailers of bodies competed with black lives matter protesters for space on the streets, prayer meant not knowing, prayer meant just being there in that moment even if you didn't know what the next would bring. Unable to hold hands, prayer was something in the voice, a lilt that said I see you. And at times it was simply sitting and breathing together - the unnerving gift of shared breaths marking life.

And then prayer became logging on. Sometimes turning your video on and sometimes not. Prayer expanded to include the cacophonous thanksgiving of unmuted voices and the string of typed amens and raised hand emojis floating up your screen.

In socially distanced times, prayer became gardening, tie dying. It became picking up your hot-cross bun from the bin on the porch. Prayer became walks and awkwardly spaced picnics and more walks. 

And this year prayer has been straddling spaces straddling changing realities. It’s propping up screens in lecture halls. Noting who is absent. It’s been delivering meals and rapid tests and class notes. 

Prayer is finally, again, hugs, smiles, resonant voices, bodies sliding against each other in pews. Prayer is bread on the tongue, water on the forehead. 

Prayer is so many ways of being. Prayer is so much. 

I wonder about the moment when a Psalm, known only aloud in the voice, was first put down in words/letters. The form of the prayer altered for a changing reality. I wonder at the early epistle writers trusting the hand written letters to carry prayers across distances.

Prayers take many forms, thankfully, for we have all experienced the sudden shifts in our day to day realities. We know how quickly familiar forms of worship can be taken away.

As we continue to the next - the next city, degree, church, supervision site. To the next class, paper, sermon. To the next diagnosis, test result, treatment. To the next time of waiting, of unknown.

As we continue may we say and hear these prayers, in their many forms, without ceasing, for we have known faith and we have known love and for that we thank God.

Amen