to pray in secret …

In the Gospel of Matthew we read (6: 5-6):

And when you pray, do not imitate the hypocrites; they love to say their prayers standing up in the synagogues and at the street corners for people to see them. I tell you solemnly, they have had their reward. But when you pray, go to your private room and, when you have shut the door, pray to your Father who is in that secret place, and your Father who sees all that is done in secret will reward you.

The whole idea of an omniscient God has existed since Abraham. I would love to ask the question – who are the hypocrites today? but I think that is a topic for another post. Rather today I ask ‘what is your private room’? I am working from the assumption that we have a personal connection with God (whatever that looks like).

So, I asked myself what is MY private room. The only answer that sprung forth (again and again) was that my room was inside myself, in the quiet stillness of reflection, or the pause after the chaos of turmoil, or the numbness after intense grief and pain. Not my mind, but my spirit. The space where I wear no mask and am truly just myself – warts and all. It is not always in a closed-in space; often for me it is in nature.

Then I asked – why do I need to shut a metaphorical door? Is it the only door? What am I shutting out?

Am I shutting out temptation? Or the voices of a society driven in a direction that is not loving? Or am I shutting out my own fears so that I can be in that place of connection with the divine? Or the pressures to be something I am not? Or the rules that just do not sit well within my heart? Or the ever-flurrying time that keeps ticking at an alarming rate?

Perhaps it is fear – for fear is what drives much of what we do. We are so afraid of not being loved that we forget that we are loved infinitely and without reserve. We need to shut out these voices that say we are not good enough, or worthy, to sit in that space where we are loved. So we shut out all that is not love, so we can sit in love.

What do we do in this space? In the Gospel we hear Jesus say that we pray. The question then is the timeless one of what is prayer? If prayer is that communication with God (who is love) and we aspire to be more God-like, then is it not logical to look at ourselves with an honest lens, untainted by the judgement of society, to reflect on (as Joan Chittister puts it):

‘… to look under every rock inside my own heart to determine what of life is still really gold and what of the answers that remain from the past is now simply fool’s dust.’

In our private room, we know who we are. We know what matters and what, ultimately, does not. The challenge is to bring that conviction through the door when we re-open it and emerge into the arena. For some reason I often leave these thoughts in my private room and I know that I need to work harder on bringing them with me.

There is a song I used to use at a previous school ‘Lifesong’, by one of my favourite Christian artists Casting Crowns. At the end of each day do you want your life that day to sing of the glories of God, or the seduction of Society?