Forgot to pray

I intended to honor two prayer requests yesterday and I forgot both of them. These were requests to pray at a certain time. One was to pray at noon for the nuclear situation in Japan, specifically for the healing of the radioactive waters. The other was to pray at dusk, when a certain prisoner in Alabama was scheduled to be executed. Our friends Mark and Sara had befriended this death row prisoner over many years, through letters and visits, and would be present at his execution.

These are not trivial matters and yet they fell totally out of my consciousness. Two questions arise. Do I believe in prayer? Perhaps the forgetting was a sign that I really don’t. And the second is, even if I do believe, was it important for me to be praying on these matters at those times? Perhaps the forgetting was a sign that those prayers were not mine to offer yesterday.

Oh there’s a third question, too. Am I totally losing it? Yes, probably. I’m not as post-menopausal foggy as I used to be, like when I forgot a birthday dinner for a friend to which my husband and I were the only invitees, but things do evaporate from my memory. I am easily distracted by such things as the presence, yesterday, of my grandbaby and the arrival of spring. See below: Hazel in front of jasmine-fragrant witch hazel and the first hepatica blooming in my woods.

Do I believe in prayer? My belief has been intermittent but in recent years I have been more of a believer than an unbeliever. Belief, for me, requires experience. It is not a matter of putting my trust in something that somebody else tells me is so; it has to hit me in the face, or the stomach and even then I lose faith. The power of prayer has demonstrated itself many times. I have prayed and things have happened. I have found peace and answers to knotty problems. Loved ones have been healed and helped. Protections have held. I have seen signs and wonders. So yes, I do believe in prayer, though my belief requires the constant nourishment of experience.

The second question comes close to what I believe about prayer. Were these the prayers for me to offer? I did pray yesterday but not for these things. Maybe I’m wrong but I do not believe in perfunctory prayer. Instead, I pray about what is front and center in my attention. I have come to believe that the matters for prayer seek me out, and the nature of the prayer itself is also given. That is, I may not know what to pray for, or how to pray, and then I do. So prayer is not a matter of imposing my will on a situation but of entering into a larger harmony that brings peace to all concerned because it represent divine rightness. Prayer is participation.

Both of the prayer requests represented that potential and I wanted to participate. But my attention was elsewhere and so I participated in something else. A different prayer was given to me. May yesterday’s prayers, by everyone, be blessed. And today’s.