This week’s post is a bit different. It may perhaps be one of those-I guess you had to have been there moments-but you all have unconditional love for me, right? So let’s take a trip.

In all the thinking I’ve been doing lately regarding prayer, my mind keeps going back to a story I read a few years ago.

There is a book called The Brothers K. It was written by a man named David James Duncan.

In this fictional work, there is a minor character named Vera. She is described as being a hair-lip (cleft palate) and this causes her to have a most severe lisp. She cannot speak clearly. But, oh, can she ever pray.

She doesn’t care a lick about her lisp. She prays with every particle of her heart and soul. She doesn’t care how she sounds to others. She doesn’t pay attention to the fact that others snicker at her. She is solely and wholly focused on the one to whom she prays.

The narrator (Kincaid) describes a scene in which the minister reluctantly calls on a volunteering Vera to pray before the church:

“Nyearest Nyeesus!” she calls our, her voice, her whole body quivering. “Nank nyou! Nank nyou, for yall nyour nyimmy nyimmy nmlessings, nand for nthis nay of Nhristian Nyellowshipt!”

At the words nyimmy nyimmy Micah (another child) uncorks a snicker-and there are lots of answering snorts today. Maybe there always are. Maybe I just hear them today because I’m stuck sitting next to her. Most of my wants to snort with the others, but another part of me makes me gouge my knuckels in my eye sockets and fight to hear her prayer. “Mlease, nLord!” Vera cries, as if she’s pleading with an ax murder. “Mlease fornivvus our snins and nrespasseth! Nwee are nso nunworthy, nso nverry nvery nunworthy!”

Noses blow violently; half-stifled giggles circle the room like pigeons trapped in a barn. The minister keeps his head bowed, but clears his throat and steps threateningly around his podium. “Nopen our narts, nwee veseech nthee!” Vera prays.

“Narts! Narts!” Micah moans, and the pigeons flap even more wildly… “Nyelp us to nlove nyou nmore and nmore! She prays as Micah laughs outright, “and nmore and nmore!” she pleads as girls grab kleenex, “and snill nyet nmore!” she begs as boys fizz up and overflow like jostled bottles of pop. “Nenter our narts!” she cries, her voice breaking, her body trembling so violently it makes my chair tremble too. “Nenter nthem now! Nright now! Nwee are nso nlost, nso nvery nlost, nwithout nThee!” And even was it occurs to me that this must be real prayer-even as I see that what is being laughed at is the sound of someone actually ramming a heartfelt message past all the crossed signals and mazes of our bodies, brains and embarrassments clear on in to her God-when I pen my fists and peek at Vera I see a face so exposed, so twisted with love, grief and longing, that if she was my sister I would take off my coat, and I’d wrap her up and hold her, and I would beg her never, ever to do this naked, passionate, impossible thing again.” pg 86-87

and then describing this scene to his father, he says, “I means she makes up these prayers-the great big long suckers-and says ’em right in front of everybody. It’s not like showing off. It’s like they just pour out of her, like she’s die or something if she held them in.”

and in regards to the snickers and mocking he explains to his dad, “It was like she couldn’t hear, like the noise never mattered, because she was really praying, see, not just pretending, so no one counted to her, expect maybe-you know, God.” pg 97

There seems to me a zillion different ways to pray. I have found myself on both ends of the spectrum. I have had times like when my mother passed away where I was so desperate for God to hear me I went on my knees, not to be heard but because there was such a pain and panic in my heart and brain and everything in between that I couldn’t stand up. There have also been times when I feel so disinterested in prayer that I have read from the Book of Common Prayer trying to trigger something.

Each day is different. Each person is different. I have a healthy respect for those who are faithful and consistent in their prayer life. I don’t know there are right words or right times or right places to pray. I do know there are right attitudes from which our prayers should flow. Grateful. Genuine. Authentic.

We need to be like Vera and labor towards getting past all the “crossed signals and mazes of our bodies, brains and embarrassments clear on in to our God.”