River Currents: The Physics of Prayer

Floating in style.

My view of the spiritual life is that it is like the currents of a river.

We are born in this river and that's where we live our lives. It is all around us, and it has energy and movement. Like a person swimming in the river, we are a part of it and yet also have some autonomy--at least, for a time.

We have the ability to either swim with the currents of the river or against them.

There are things we can do--or that can happen to us--to align ourselves more closely with the Spirit.

Religious traditions have identified methods--prayer, meditation, academic study, works of charity, artistic pursuits, our daily labors, our family, friendships and community involvement--that can put us more or less in line with the currents of the river.

When we are moving with the current, we seem to swim more easily, seem to cover more ground and seem to be doing what we are meant to be doing. When we fight against it, it's sometimes dangerous, but not always--but it's a lot of effort with perhaps little gain. We're out of sync.

We don't control the river, but we can make ourselves more receptive to it.

And sometimes the river will simply move us no matter what we do. Call it grace.

The current can also be dangerous, too--a long tradition of martyrs witnesses to this.

Maybe this is not an original thought--saying that the Spirit is like a river is borderline cliché, after all. How many of you reading this have Garth Brooks' The River going through your mind right now? (I'd link to it here but I wasn't able to find any good versions online.) But it feels new to me if we apply this metaphor of the river specifically how it relates to spiritual practices. It's a way to understand prayer. It's a way to understand religion--it's the physics of spiritual practices.

A lot of people reject the notion of the power of prayer, saying--if there is a God, how can we pretend to control God through our petitions?

A common response to this is: Prayer changes the one who prays more than it commands the activity of God.

Pope Francis seems to be echoing these thoughts in the meme above. This is one of my all-time favorite Francis quotes. He has an ultra-earthy spirituality that I just love. It's a spirituality so concrete it sounds like atheism. He is challenging anyone who has lulled themselves into a false confidence that the amazingly passive action of praying for the hungry is actually going to somehow bring food into their mouths. That is not nearly enough. I don't think he is saying that prayer itself isn't enormously beneficial, I just think he's suggesting that if all you are doing for the hungry is praying for them, that's not exactly bringing your "A" game by any stretch.

Prayer changes us, but not just our attitudes.

I think it's more about energy. When we pray, we turn toward the current and allow it to carry us--like a sunflower that turns toward the sun. We vibrate at the same frequency of the Spirit. Or at least, we tune ourselves to harmonize with the cosmos better. Prayer--and other practices--help align ourselves to go with the current rather than against.

Instead of resisting the current, attempting to muddle along inch-by-inch through our own power, we instead submit ourselves to the current first. Then our efforts are supported and encouraged by the momentum we have put ourselves in line with. It's the same spiritual energy that gave birth to us and which is our ultimate end.

Prayer brings us into a resonance with the deeper, life-giving wavelengths of the universe. It does not just change our attitude or direct our awareness, both of which are also good, impactful things--it causes us to vibrate at a different frequency. Once we are vibrating at a different frequency, the world around us changes, too, because we will then be drawing other people, activities and things that resonate with our new vibrations.

Imagine yourself a street musician. If you play sad songs, you might invite the tears of those who pass by. If you play happy songs, you may find yourself surrounded by happy people dancing. If you align yourself with the deepest currents of the universe--the deepest of which is love, according to all the mystics from nearly all the world's religions--then your life and activities will correspond with love, and you will probably witness daily miracles.

However, I reject the notion of what many called the "prosperity Gospel." This is the idea that if you do what God wants, then you will be rewarded with material riches, as if God is locked into some kind of contractual relationship with you. Prosperity Gospel enthusiasts will say that faithful believers will be rewarded with happiness, wealth and easy-to-see material rewards. I do affirm there is a power to positive thinking, but it's not as linear as that. A lot of people surrounded by love also have great tragedy. Spiritual abundance does not always correspond to the material abundance we were hoping for. The spiritual path takes bravery for this very reason.

I'm not against the idea that prayer not only changes the people praying but can also effect change outside of themselves, too. There are probably ways that prayer can impact the collective consciousness or draw positive energy toward us or others, like some spiritual gravitational field. I also think that this is also personal and not merely mechanical, although I cannot claim to be able to work out the theology for that.

A lot of people think they opt into the Spiritual life when they join a particular religion or get initiated. I don't think so. We are already in the river. We have a physical, emotional and spiritual life by our very nature. We don't just opt in. You don't get a body by joining a gym, and you don't get a heart by seeing a therapist--but you can choose to cultivate those aspects of yourself through these mechanisms. Religion is an attempt to do the same for the spiritual dimension of life.

Much of Christianity has skewed this, I think. There is a longstanding belief that we can choose what kind of afterlife we want or whether we have one at all--rather than simply believing that we are all just part of it all no matter what. In my view, we can choose to thrive in it or not, but we can't choose whether or not to participate--at least, not in this life.

We can choose to glide gracefully over the waters or thrash about--why? Perhaps for the sheer beauty of it. Perhaps it is not tied to any end other than just that. Maybe we can do good just because it's good--a pure gift, just like how God gives to us. That's when we know we are truly in line with the Spirit.

Too much of Christianity has claimed that the value of cultivating a spirituality is for the purposes of securing a certain kind of afterlife for oneself. I think that stagnates growth as it is based on fear. The Biblical tradition instead calls us to let go of fear and just love for no other reason than because we were ourselves loved openly and freely first. Does this come with some kind of consequence?  I'm sure it does, but not in some simplistic sense of buying ourselves a ticket to heaven. But it does put us more closely in line with the power of Christ who will ultimately reconcile all of Creation back to God--why not support that rather than resist? Maybe all the workers receive the same wage whether they arrive early or late (Matthew 20:1-16), but wouldn't you just rather be early to the ultimate party and be part of it as it is unfolding? That is its own reward.

I think the spiritual path is more about behavior than belief--that's why nonbelievers who are full of abundant love are in line with the Spirit, even though they may understand it differently than I do.

I would also suggest that much, if not all, of what I'm saying here is not far removed from more traditional religious speak. There may be different language for it, but if you step back and look with a mystical eye, you might conclude that I'm not saying anything new at all.

What meditation looks like.