Approaching Prayer

As part of my newly aquired taste for easily accessible and interesting audio, I have jumped on the Podcast bandwagon. Two of my favorite NPR shows (This American Life and Speaking of Faith) are offering free podcasts of their shows, so I can easily download them to my IPod and listen to them whenever I want. This contrasts with the hit and miss (and partial listening) to them on the radio.

Yesterday as I was driving around in the car, I listened to a recent Speaking of Faith episode called Approaching Prayer. Then, tonight, as I was doing the dishes I relistened to portions of it. There were three guests that discussed with the host different modes of prayer. I have a lot of thoughts stemming from listening to this. But, I wanted to specifically talk about Steven Mitchell, one of the guests, and some of the things he shared. He has translated many sacred texts. As mentioned in the show, one reviewer said that he translates God into English. He talked about the love that he has for sacred texts--both prose and poetry--and his desire for intimacy with them. So, he immerses himself in something specific for a given period of time. He used an analogy that really caught my attention. If someone is pointing their finger at the moon, we don't look at their finger, but at the moon. Sacred texts are valuable inasmuch as they point us to something bigger. We don't want to get trapped staring only at the texts, but trying to glean their larger message. What shines through the words is what we really care about. He talked about what is at the edge of the words. The most they can do is speak with a kind of depth and beauty to point beyond themselves.

This reminded me of a talk given by an undergrad in our Princeton ward. James was a recent convert with a non-Christian background whose family lived in Long Island. He discussed how words are meaningful only inasmuch as we give them cultural significance. We use words to describe abstract concepts. As soon as the words leave our mouths, they exit and disappear forever into the universe. But, what we are trying to represent with those words maintains.

But, back to Mitchell and the program. It was amazing and I really felt spiritually invigorated and excited in a way that I haven't in a while. I felt inspired to look to other faith traditions at their sacred texts. The first guest on the program was Anushka Shankar who plays the sitar. She talked about Indian (and Hindu) chanting. But, as I listened, I thought that there must be certain cadences in the universe and that there are probably many ways to tap into them. I would like study texts from other religions to see what kinds of insights they have. Mitchell has a few anthologies that I want to look into.

In general, though, it was so refreshing to hear prayer talked about in a different way. In a way that really made me want to improve my dialogue with God, rather than feeling like "yeah, I really should work on that."