Morning Prayer: 39/100. User-friendly Praying.
User-Friendly Praying
A couple of weeks ago I made May’s well-being calls to my list of people from church. Purpose of the call is to ask if they’d like a prayer and offer to share one with them. This time one person went into some detail about why s/he would like a prayer. I asked if they’d like me to pray or if they’d like me, along with God, to listen to their praying. The person quickly answered, “Oh no. I could never pray out loud. I have no idea what to say!”
I smiled because I’d just heard the individual saying their prayer in so many words. I recalled how often I have heard others say the same thing: “I would not know what to pray!” Driving home I smiled at the idea that so many do not find praying user-friendly.
I spent some web-time researching “user-friendly”. Originally, the term referred to computer stuff like software and websites and applications. Different reports say the phrase first appeared in 1977, 1984, 1994…
As you’d expect it means “easy to use, operate, understand.” It means “easily operated and understood by means of a straightforward guide in jargon-free language.” It means “easy to learn to use.”
Guess I’m blessed that praying has always been user-friendly for me. I feel that’s because there’s not any definite, required, expected, or has-to-be-that-way method of praying. What makes some things not user-friendly is that you have to follow an exact procedure to make those things work.
Getting around websites, working software programs and manipulating mobile apps is not always free or easy. That’s why there are thousands of web postings that offer 3 or 5 or 10 or 12 or 25 ways to make this or that user-friendly. They all pretty much say if your users have to follow procedure, make it as painless as possible. And the tips are all intended to make it painless.
Let’s take 3 of those tips and apply them to praying. Let’s figure out how easy it is to make saying a prayer really user-friendly.
- Concise content. True for a website, true for a prayer. If you keep it short you don’t have to worry about remembering all you need to say or want to say. You don’t have to worry that you’ll repeat yourself because your prayer’s so long. You don’t have to worry that God will get tired of listening. (God never gets tired of listening, but there’s no need worrying about it anyway!)
- Intuitive. Another word might be heartspoken. Pray from your heart not with your mind. It’s the feelings you share, not the words you speak, that carry the meaning. That’s because it’s the feelings you have, not the thoughts you think, that generate your praying.
- Adhere to standards. For this one I’m definitely changing the words. Set your standards. Prayers do not have to begin with a standard greeting. Prayers do not have to end with “amen.” Prayers have no certain length, no prescribed tone of voice, no set number of heavenly words. Your prayer is your prayer. And God’s. Your standards let you pray the way you want which lets you be comfortable with how you pray. And once you set your standards, stick with them. Until they change.
Friendly Spirit,
You are so easy to talk to, to share with, to enjoy.
Thank you that we can learn and love
that praying is only as hard as we make it,
that praying is truly as easy as we want it.
You bless us with well-known prayers that inspire
and satisfy and motivate and calm.
As well you bless us with the freedom to pray
as we desire. To speak from our hearts,
to let our feelings flow seamlessly from us
to you.
Good Friend, let us remember and delight with
the ease, the simplicity, the pleasure that
any-way’s-the-right-way to pray with you.
And so we thank you! Amen!
Love and Blessings,
1 June ’16
In: God, Joy, Peace, Prayer, Praying, Spirituality · Tagged with: Divine Spirit, God, Prayer, praying, spiritual simplicity, Unity
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