Prayer
I never used to pray. Its religious association didn’t appeal to me. As a child, however, my mom would have me say the “now I lay me down to sleep” prayer nightly. I never understood it. Why should I pray in case I die? It didn’t seem like the right message just before I went to sleep, so I stopped doing it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it contributed to my insomnia years later.
One year ago, after an intensive back surgery and subsequent recovery, I started topray again. It wasn’t anything formal. As I was falling asleep, I would simply pray for the well-being of family members and clients. I didn’t pray for peace or universal salvation, just simple, quiet, prayers in my mind for the well-being of people I loved. It became a very warm ritual for me as I settled into bed. I never related it to my bygone childhood prayers, I just prayed silently and contently.
Much earlier, as I was developing my identity as an integrative psychotherapist, I read Larry Dossey’s foundational book, Space, Time and Medicine. Steeped in science, but bending toward spiritual integration, he appealed to my “out of the box” thinking. Dossey, along with Fritjof Capra, Douglas Hofstadter and many others, solidified the new age approach coming out of the late 60’s and early 70’s. This approach forged the belief that life, health, and human development do not solely exist on the basis of linear and logical sequences, and that certain cognitive practices could further enrich the experiences and utility of thought. At the time, the exploration into expanding consciousness looked at possibilities existing far beyond the boundaries of our native senses in ways that connect everyone to a unifying field that could be personally and collectively influential. One way of accessing these intermingling spaces was through prayer. Dossey went on to become a leading proponent of the healing power of prayer. He was the first to admit that there was nothing original to his claims, but as a scientist he encouraged his students and patients to consider that prayer could expand consciousness beyond personal boundaries in ways that connect, and even heal, maladies of the mind, body and spirit.
Somewhere along the way, Coldplay caught my ear. The front man, Chis Martin, also known as the former husband to Gweneth Paltrow from whom he consciously uncoupled a decade ago, describes a process to his musicality that invokes Dossey’s teaching. In a Rolling Stone interview Martin says that some of his biggest hits “arrive” to him and that he must pluck them out of the air to produce them. Like many songs, they seem to come from an underlying well of human potential that leads to some creative output greater than the artist ever imagined. Just consider Bob Dylan’s early work, a self-described troubadour acting as a conduit, and not simply a material creator, manifesting the art that was flowing through him.
On October 5th of this year I was watching Saturday Night Live as Coldplay was showcasing their new single, We Pray. It was backed up by Tini, an Argentinian singer, and Palestinian-Chilean singer, Elyanna. I was surprised by how dynamic it was. Three days later I saw the same performance on the Today Show. There was something about Tini, Elyanna and Martin all singing rhythmically in their native languages that went beyond the lyrics. It was a unifying tune. Ageless. Generational. In a subsequent interview Martin explains that along with Tini and Elyanna, British rapper Little Sims and Nigerian rapper Burma Boy all join on the original recording to produce a song that is cross cultural, genre-defying and is quickly becoming a universal anthem of hope, connectedness, and peace through prayer. Martin said the song found him during a sleepless night in Tawain. Groggy, he got up and grabbed hold of it until it found its current form.
That was a full circle moment for me. My mother, my back surgery, Larry Dossey and Coldplay all carried the same theme of expansive consciousness and connection through prayer. Lately I’ve been struggling with how to participate in the current mind-numbing political rhetoric, and the raging controversy between a free Palestine and Sovereign Israel wrapped in 5,000 years of middle eastern trauma, in a way that is life affirming and directional. Martin was offering an alternative to that desire to reconcile and rationalize with a unifying call to prayer. It is, after all, one thing that probably unites us as citizens of the planet more than divides us since we all undoubtedly pray for the same things.
As Dossey says, Prayer is an attitude of the heart. It is not an ideology or an opinion. It’s not drenched in political dogma or looking for political favor. It’s not hierarchical, tribal, or territorial. It’s just a vibe that when put out into the universe produces some magical moments. When those moments appear, we are now challenged to pluck them out of the air and create something unifying from them. Martin is a good example of how taking different artists, from different cultures, and merging them into a singular song of mutual prayer can lift us above the fray, if just for a moment. Maybe my misguided mother was right. Years later, in my own transcendent way, I include people, places and problems in my prayers when I lay me down to sleep.