“Prayer is like lying awake at night, afraid, with your head under the cover, hearing only the beating of your own heart. It is like a bird that has blundered down the flue and is caught indoors and flutters at the windowpanes. It is like standing a long time on a cold day, knocking at a shut door.”
―Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow
I don’t understand. This does not sound like a Christian view of prayer. Can someone clarify?
Hey Ken, this isn’t my typical understanding of prayer either, but that’s something I love about inward/outward, all the different perspectives it provides on the spiritual life. I like what Anne Lamott says about prayer, that there are three types: Please, thanks, wow. I suppose Berry is describing a form of the “please” variety, when we feel meek and helpless in prayer. Maybe you and I should be grateful that we don’t often come to God in such a weak state! But perhaps that is also a challenge to us, for “blessed are the meek.”
Correction: Anne Lamott’s book title about her three types of prayer is: “Help, Thanks, Wow”.