{"id":48345,"date":"2009-02-24T00:02:41","date_gmt":"2009-02-24T08:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.katefox.biz\/newhall\/?p=16"},"modified":"2009-02-24T00:02:41","modified_gmt":"2009-02-24T08:02:41","slug":"sister-barbara-hazzard-how-to-pray-without-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/sister-barbara-hazzard-how-to-pray-without-words\/","title":{"rendered":"Sister Barbara Hazzard on How to Pray Without Words"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Buddhist<\/a>
Buddhist prayer flags, Sikkim<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cMeditation, sitting in silence, is a prayer of faith. You totally let go of being in charge, which is different from what most prayer is about, because as long as we use words, we are in control. Most of us as Christians have been trained that prayer is talking to God. We feel the responsibility to do something, to be active when we pray, but in meditation, you enter it with the idea that you will let the Spirit transform you. You don\u2019t talk, you listen.\u201d<\/p>\n

— Sister Barbara Hazzard, <\/em>Roman Catholic<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What is prayer anyway? I haven’t a clue. These days, when I go to pray, I often find I haven’t a thing to say to God. Every tradition I’ve come in contact with in all my years as a religion reporter and writer recommends — no, insists upon — prayer. Yet right now I don’t know how to do it. I don’t even know why<\/em> to do it.<\/p>\n

That’s the reason I find this passage from the interview I conducted with Sister Barbara so compelling. (The interview was for my book, Wrestling With God<\/a>: Stories of Doubt and Faith<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

Sister Barbarawas a person with a lot of experience with prayer. A Benedictine monk, Sister Barbara was the founder of Hesed<\/a>, an urban, non-resident Benedictine community in Oakland, California, which \u00a0teaches and practices Christian meditation. (Note: Sister Barbara died in 2021,<\/p>\n

\"Rome's<\/a>
Rome’s Pantheon: A pagan, then Christian, place of prayer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What I’m hearing when I reread these words of hers\u00a0is that there are many ways to approach — to\u00a0be open to? — \u00a0the sacred.<\/p>\n

What is <\/em>prayer anyway? Why do it? And how do you pray — with words, or like Sister Barbara, without words?<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is prayer anyway? I haven’t a clue. These days, when I go to pray, I often find I haven’t a thing to say to God. Every tradition I’ve come in contact with in all my years as a religion reporter and writer recommends — no, insists upon — prayer. Yet right now I don’t know how to do it. I don’t even know why to do it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[61,62,63,64],"class_list":["post-48345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-rocky-spiritual-journey","tag-christian-meditation","tag-hesed","tag-prayer","tag-silence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48345\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}