• Have I chosen the right place?
• Am I in the right posture?
• How often?
• For how long?

Each becomes part of the criteria for prayer efficacy.

Luke's Gospel (18: 9 - 14), often has the heading, The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector.

It's a story remembered by many of us -Pharisee up the front, the tax collector down the back.

The Pharisee begins his prayer as a contest, "God, I thank you I am not like. . . . .", and immediately the Pharisee's prayer is about himself.

Christian prayer is not something we do - an activity.

Rather it is a relationship with another, and for those in a relationship, you will be aware that what happens is a matter of initiative and response, first by one and then the other; and in those moments of exuberant joy, there is a syncopation like only lovers know.

If I am engaged in Christian prayer because I have to, in order to be good and acceptable, then I am not engaged in Christian prayer!

There is a story told about a Jewish farmer who did not get home before sunset one Sabbath and was forced to spend the night in the field, waiting for sunrise the next day before being able to return home.

Upon his return home, he was met by a rather perturbed rabbi who chided him for his carelessness.

"What did you do out there all night in the field?" the rabbi asked him.

"Did you at least pray?"

The farmer answered: "Rabbi, I am not a clever man. I do not know how to pray properly. What I did was to simply recite the alphabet all night and let God form the words for himself."

When we come to celebrate, we bring the alphabet of our lives.

Our psyches go up and down.

Sometimes we feel like singing and dancing.

Sometimes there is a spring in our step.

However, we have other seasons too - cold seasons, bland seasons, seasons of tiredness, pain, illness, and boredom.

If prayer is lifting of heart and mind to God, then clearly, during these times, we ought to be lifting something other than song and dance.

If our hearts and minds are full of warmth, love, enthusiasm, song, and dance, then these are the letters we bring.

If our hearts and minds are full of tiredness, despair, blandness, pain, and boredom, then those are our letters we bring.

Offer them and allow your God to construct them into words!

• Gerard Whiteford is Marist priest; retreat facilitator and spiritual companion for 35 years.

Dr Pita Sharples, Maori Party Co-Leader, supported Kelston's initiative saying that 'schools have to reflect and respect the culture of our kids to make them feel welcome and connected' and noting that karakia, 'is a vital part of our lifestyle.'

Pita was probably talking about Maori lifestyle but even so, our collective, multi-cultural Kiwi world is well on the way to being an eclectic blend of cultural and religious rituals.

I was thinking about all this during a Matariki service last week at the hospital where I work as a chaplain. My colleague, another Anglican priest who happens to be Maori, led the service.

God, the Christian version and a combination of older models, was addressed in the karakia nestled amidst chanting, singing, good humour, tree planting and a cuppa afterwards. It was heart warming.

However, if we'd tried to celebrate a Christian festival honouring the changing of the seasons and the sacredness of the Earth, few, if any would have felt obligated to turn up. Instead it would have been seen as religious, an attempt to force an unwanted and irrelevant belief system on others.

In one sense what Dr Sharples says is true. However, it's also true that communities focused on Christianity, Judaism or Islam would not be able to introduce their prayers into a state school as Kelston has done because we have enshrined religious prejudice in law.

This is why church schools in New Zealand are now the only places teaching an intellectually rigorous curriculum of religious studies, values, ethics and philosophy; remarkably useful subjects for growing citizens of a diverse world.

Religions grew out of human struggles with life, the quest for an understanding of the 'more than' of our existence. Continue reading

Sources

• Sande Ramage in Spirited Crone
• Image: Marist Messenger

Sande Ramage is an Anglican priest and blogger.