PRAYER WITHOUT LOVE

I was going to blog about something else next (part of my Great Master Plan for More Blogging), but that can wait just a bit. Something on this morning's Good Morning America caught my attention.

GMA did a story this morning about a scientific study about the effectiveness of prayer on seriously ill patients. They had three groups of patients: one who knew they were being prayed for, one who were prayed for but not told, and one who were not prayed for. Apparently, the group who knew they were prayed for turned out to actually do worse than the other two. Now, in the interests of science, the people who were chosen to do the praying were at a distance and totally unconnected with the patients. After presenting those results of the study, Robin Roberts talked with the show's own medical expert (who also happens to be an ordained minister) about it all. Dr. Tim (I'm suddenly blanking on his surname) said he had problems with the science of the study, because given the wide variety of possible illnesses, you didn't really have the kind of consistency of conditions for good scientific evaluations. And then, of course, the variability of those doing the praying. He added that as a pastor, the importance of the connection of the loved ones with the patient was also significant when it came to the effectiveness of prayer.

It's all very intriguing. But I think Dr. Tim is on the track of one of the crucial elements - at least to me - in prayer. And that element is love.

Now, understand, I do believe that God pays attention to all prayer. There's no such thing as a wasted prayer as far as I'm concerned. But I also think that our attitude of love is very important in the effect.

John tells us that God is Love. So, when we put ourselves into a state of love (I'm sure you understand I'm not talking about romance here), we come closer to the nature of God, closer to His heart. I also believe that an attitude of love brings us spiritually close to those we are praying for. And love requires that we step back from our own personal needs & desires, and really put the other person first.

So, when we actually know someone, especially when they are dear to us, that ability to "get out of the way" is much more active. It's much easier to do when we genuinely care, when our heart is engaged. Impersonal, objective prayer ... I'm not so sure about that.

I think this is one of the big drawbacks of our social training to be "objective" and "scientific" and "rational". We become far too detached from the lives of those around us. We aren't really engaged in what's going on in the lives of others, even those close to us. Except when we choose to let them get close and matter more.

So I really think that love is a crucial element in prayer. And that has some really interesting implications when we start moving into the admonitions to pray for our enemies, for those who hate us, for those we dislike. For prayer to be most effective, it needs to spring from love. And yet many of those we're told to pray for are folks I don't really want to love. So, either I don't pray for those folks, or I have to find a way into "love territory".

How come God doesn't make this stuff easy?

That's a rhetorical question. "If it were easy, everyone would be doing it." Heh.

Again, I don't think any prayer is wasted. But I do think the best, most effective prayers for others come from an engaged heart. "The prayers of a righteous man availeth much." Yes. The person who is focused on being God's child is ahead of the pack. But righteousness isn't just about doing all the right things in our actions, it is about becoming closer to God, becoming more like God. And if God is Love, then we need to be moving more and more into the territory of Love when we pray.

So that, then, is the challenge of prayer as I see it. For my prayers to be most effective, I need to open my heart entirely for the benefit of the person I'm praying for. The person I'm praying for has to matter to me, in a positive way. That's not always easy. But this morning's story has given me food for thought about it. I need to be even less perfunctory about my prayers for those people that I don't know personally. They have to matter to me, even if I don't know them.

"I'll pray for you." That's not a small thing, especially if I can do it the way the Lord really wants me to do it.

PUTTING THE WORK BEFORE GOD

Recently, my screenwriting group critiqued a rewritten script of mine. I'd revised what had originally been a TV pilot script into a feature script. Or rather, that was the intention.

But the reality was something different. Expanding scenes doesn't necessarily make them better. And listening to the script notes made me look back at the process that had gotten me to that particular point. One glitch in the script was an action sequence: my main character was not behaving the way she should have (given her traits and profession). Plus the sequence actually existed because I wanted to use a location a certain way, not really because the story required it.

After the session, when I got home, I did some more thinking about it. About the problems in the script as it is, about the suggestions from the group (good ones). But also about where my head and heart were in working on this story. Previously, I'd spent four years working on a book about mythic motifs for writers (currently under consideration with a publisher). And every day I sat down to work on it, I submitted it to the Lord. God was very engaged in the process of writing that book. And I really worked on it. Writing and rewriting. Polishing and making sure it was a clear as possible. And I'm proud of that work.

But when I looked at this script in that light, I realized I hadn't involved God in it at all. Or at least no more than His being involved in my daily life. There was no intentional committing of the work to His hands. No seeking His inspiration in the storytelling. Originally, I had simply dashed off the story to show off how quickly I could go from cold concept to finished script. Except that it never really had been "finished". And now I knew I hadn't even begun it in the best way possible.

Like the second chances that God gives us, the good thing is that I can rewrite. Or start over again, which is probably more accurate about this particular story. And this time, I intend to engage God in the story.

Now... many dewy, dreamy Christians come to Hollywood with the intention of winning the business for Jesus. Or converting many, many hearts. And not that those are bad aims. But really, to have any hope of doing either of those things, one has to have mastered the craft.

But there is something more than just mastering the craft that ought to come into the picture. I feel I've acquired some mastery of writing (after all, I can point to Bachelor's and Master's degrees). But I don't always give -- this will sound a bit weird -- proper reverence to the practice of the craft. Because sometimes it's "too easy" for me. I acquired both of those degrees living on first drafts of papers. And it wasn't because I had lax professors. The professor for whom I wrote my Masters thesis was notorious for being very stingy with her As: she had very high standards. But aside from some basically minor wording corrections, she gave me an A on the thesis' first draft, along with the comment that it was "very intelligent."

All that was not good preparation for screenwriting, where the rewrite is very important. It's also very bad mental preparation when your first drafts are deemed sufficient. I'm not trying to imply that I'm not conscious that that "first draft ability" is very much a gift from God: it is, and I never lose awareness of that fact. But even knowing that, I don't always work at the craft as I ought to.

That's where, for me, submitting the work to the Lord comes in.

If, when I sit down to work on some story or other, I say "Lord, I'm putting this in front of you. May it find favor with you. Help me to do the work to make it the best that it can be" -- if I do that, it's harder for me to be quite so casual about the whole process. I compare the experience of working on the myth book, where things came together smoothly even though it was work, and the work on this particular script. Not that this writing was rough. It just didn't have the same depth to it.

I think submitting the work to the Lord makes me more committed to the story (or whatever it is that I'm working on). And the deeper my committment to the story, the deeper the story itself becomes - richer, better crafted, more emotional.

Now, maybe this problem I have, of skimping on the writing because I can "get by" with first drafts, isn't one that other people have. It's possible. But I also know that my causal attitude about involving God in my writing reflects a parallel causalness about how involved I let God be in the rest of my life.

It is kind of easy to get to thinking that "Oh, this is a silly romantic comedy. Why would God care about that?" and so not involve Him in the process of writing it. And yet, here I am, a person who daily involves God in the process of finding me a parking space when I get home at night. How hard is it to go from that to engaging the Lord in all my writing projects, no matter what they are about?

Answer: not hard at all. I just have to do it.

I think the modern age discourages us from thinking of our work (whatever it might be) as sacred before God. We are no longer well trained in treating anything as truly holy. Respected, yes. Honored, yes. Admired, yes. But holy? Nope.

It just occured to me that if we can get to (or get back to) treating our work as holy, we would also start respecting the work of others more. Because if our own work is holy, so too is the work of others. How startling that could be. We live in an age of "I could do that better!" (whether or not that attitude is actually justified). But to treat the work of others, whether it is a piece of writing or of waiting on tables, as a holy act, how revolutionary that would be!

I'm going to have to think about this some more.

But in the meantime, I need to remind myself to submit each and every project to the Lord. And to engage Him in every session of working on each project. Because I have the talent to do even better than my "acceptable" first drafts.