“Pray as you can, not as you can’t.” For years I misunderstood these words. I thought they were there to comfort those of us who felt inadequate in our fumbling practice of prayer. I heard them as saying, “You can pray when you like, where you like, in any style you like, as long as it works for you.” And of course in one way this is exactly what these words mean. They are saying there is no one way of praying. Don’t let anyone be prescriptive and tell you the way you pray is wrong.

What I did not hear for years in this phrase was the words, “Pray as you can…” or rather I didn’t take them seriously. Then one day I read something and I realised I had been praying really naturally for years. It was just that it was so natural to who I am, so instinctive so to speak, that I hadn’t realised it. What was more was that I realised it was a recognisable school of prayer. I hadn’t made something up. I was praying as thousands of other people have prayed for centuries. I was praying even like people in the bible, but I hadn’t known it.

What we are comfortable with in prayer is closely akin to who we are; our personality types. Some people are naturally spontaneous in prayer; some people like to meditate deeply on scripture; some like a wordless, contemplative style of prayer and others strive to create a deep intimate relationship with God. It is great fun to experiment over the years with different styles of prayer and I believe a healthy diet in prayer includes more than one style because each school of prayer offers a different way of approaching God using different parts of who we are. So in one style of praying we can find ourselves using our imagination. In another we question the biblical text. In another we use our senses more (smell, touch, taste, feel, hearing) and in yet another do nothing (seemingly) but sit quietly and silently waiting on God. But if we come across a style of prayer and it doesn’t work for us we shouldn’t think there is something wrong with us or that we are doing it wrong. It just will never be our preferred way of praying.

But there is one valuable point that we should take on board, whatever our preferred method of prayer is, and that is that some of our less preferred ways of praying do us a great deal of good. “Pray as you can, not as you can’t,” is a great starting point but it doesn’t take on board that we have undeveloped sides of ourselves that have great potential. Stretching those undeveloped muscles by praying in a different way, can really help build up my spiritual life, make me more disciplined and spiritually mature and challenge me to think and act differently. Pray as you can, yes – but sometimes pray as you think you can’t and see what happens.

We erect barriers all the time in our lives. They are created because of a kind of shorthand of cultural and learnt expectation. But every now and then things happen to us, which take us out of our usual comfort zones and wake us up to our prejudices and limited thinking.

I spent a rather unusual day at the beginning of this week, being alongside my husband as he went in for day surgery. We were taken to a sideward of six beds. The noises from a couple of the other beds as my husband settled in were not comforting. Two gentlemen who had had the same operation he was about to have were vomiting violently. The curtains round the beds were closed and anxious relatives hovered outside them as nurses administered anti- vomiting injections and cleaned up, all with the greatest of kindness and efficiency, it must be said.

I left the hospital for an appointment as my husband was taken into surgery. I was due to meet with a man with Asperger’s syndrome to talk about various topics around the spiritual care of people with learning disabilities, their carers and others who come into contact with them, and the theology of disability. I do not know exactly what I expected to meet; probably someone with whom I might find it difficult to make emotional contact? What I discovered was a man with immensely compassionate eyes and expression, who listened carefully and thoughtfully to what I had to say and who explained his theological understanding of disability simply and directly. Here was a man who had found God in his disability and made a deep and profound study of the spiritual needs of those with learning disabilities over many years. What struck me was how his heart had travelled with his head to reach the point he was at. I was joyfully surprised at one of those unexpected real “meetings” of two persons that we are sometimes blessed with. This was one barrier down – a barrier that I realised I had erected not purposefully or meaning to be unkind, but just automatically in my ignorance and cultural prejudice.

I returned to the hospital where I waited for my husband to come back from surgery. One poor chap was still being sick behind his curtain. My husband returned, thank fully without a bad reaction to the general anaesthetic. Patients got better, curtains opened and I saw behind the two curtains a Muslim man and a Sikh man. My husband and the others chatted and there was quiet and gentle sympathy of one person with another. A shared condition, the experience of the same operation, had broken down any shyness or self-consciousness there might have been. Curtains closed had meant that all we could know of another was that this was a human being, male, having a bad time. Christian, Sikh, Muslim and for all I know Jew, Buddhist and atheist in the other beds, were simply people together, glad and grateful for the care they had been given.

Another barrier down. Too often, I know, I judge people by appearances. I see the turban before the person; the Muslim beard disguises the human being underneath and I stop at them. The real curtains in the hospital allowed me to see the curtains veiling my mind and heart; the eyes – mirrors of the soul – in my new friend with Asperger’s helped me see myself.

Beginners’ Mind
Both St Benedict and the Buddha spoke of something called, “Beginners’ Mind”. St Benedict in his “Rule” wrote that however long we have been people who pray, we must always come to prayer as if we know nothing. It is so easy to think that knowledge is wisdom, learnt techniques of prayer, prayer itself. But prayer is about coming as openly and honestly to God as we can, it is about learning to “be still and know that I am God.” It is about understanding our utter dependence on God, “Without me you can do nothing.”

However, that isn’t as easy as it sounds. Our minds are often distracted and anxious in prayer. The great Dutch theologian, Henri Nouwen, wrote of a simple way of praying that had helped him over the years. When faced with a problem which filled his mind and heart and for which he didn’t know the answer, he would say, “Lord, I don’t know what to do about this….and I don’t have to.” In that, “I don’t have to,” was the moment of letting go and of letting God, of opening himself up to God and returning to “Beginners’ Mind.”

But “Beginners’ Mind” is not just an attitude for times of prayer. It is an attitude that we are invited to develop for our lives in general. The ego is always vying for the upper hand. Pride is our constant uninvited and sly companion. As soon as we learn something new, become “wiser in our own eyes,” most of us are tempted to vaunt our newfound knowledge and wisdom. What happens when we do that is that we close ourselves down to everything else. We are no longer open to that deeper place of receiving; we cease to see, to listen and to be aware of the Spirit moving deep within us and of others and their needs. We cease to have “beginners mind.”

St Aquinaus saw what he described as “the clear light” at the end of his life and decided that all his writings were as “chaff.” He became silent and never wrote again. Perhaps all his knowledge and wisdom in the end led him back to “Beginners Mind.”