SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND…

…KNOCK AND THE DOOR SHALL BE OPENED

As humans, we seem always to be seeking.  I am no exception.  Today I have a recollection of seeking an urgent answer from my mother in seventh grade.  I don’t know why, of all my life’s searches, this one should remain such a vivid memory 35 years later.

We stood at the kitchen sink, Mother washing the dishes while I was drying them.  I was close to thirteen years old. But that night, my mind was neither on washing or drying. I was trying to pull every ounce of courage together to ask my mother for her permission.

In band at school, sitting next to Janet, I had noticed she was allowed a special privilege.  She seemed so much more mature than I because of it.  But I didn’t know how to approach my mom.  Would she think I was silly, too young, out-of-line, premature?  Would she ask me for reasons?  I didn’t have any.  I just wanted it.  Could I wait?  Yes, but I didn’t want to.  Please.  I kept repeating my silent prayer: please, please, please, please.

Finally, lacking any better plan, I did what most kids do when they get ready to jump into a cold swimming pool.  One, two, three, take a breath, ready or not, here I go:  “Mother, can I shave my legs?”  Without taking her eyes off her dishes, without taking an extra breath or raising an eyebrow, Mother answered, “Yes.”

That was it.  No questions.  No more conversation.  I had my way.  My search was over.  I just raised my eyes as a thanks and focused on drying the plate in my hand.  It hasn’t been that easy since then.

I think the hardest part of “searching” as an adult is that often we’re not sure what we want or who’s in charge of granting it.  Of course, there are the obvious adult searches when we are asking for loans and looking for jobs.  But once we are getting money and paying money, there’s a whole life ahead of us.  Never mind.  We always seem to find something to seek after.  But, unlike the nervous awkward teenager at the kitchen sink, adults seem to have lost patience with seeking through requesting.  This is the era of assertiveness.

Whole workshops and shelves of books have grown up for the express purpose of giving us adults “permission” and instruction on how to be assertive.  We are shown how to “seek” assertively:  power suits, power lunches, direct eye contact, firm handshakes, let them know that you want it.  Now.  You deserve it.  Stand your ground.  Don’t be limp-wristed, willy-nilly.  No more Mr. Nice Guy, please, please, please.  You deserve the best.  Take it.  You’re worth it.

It sounded good to me over the years.  I bought professional suits and bold eyeglass frames, watched my handshakes for signs of limpness, and tried to keep a steady stare when speaking with someone.  No weakness here.  No wonder I never prayed.

My first attempts at prayer came when I was on my knees.  I was on my knees in pain and anguish.  In failure.  In desperation.  Power and assertiveness had not worked.  They had not fixed our family when we struggled through a collapsing adoption.  They had not fixed relationships when my children and I locked in battle.  They had not healed the cancer in my father, and six years later, in my mother.

Our assertiveness had not overcome the power and assertiveness of others in my husband’s office, who interpreted power as the ability to pulverize people.  They didn’t bring reconciliation with a sister who shunned me.  I could no longer stand at the kitchen sink with anyone and appeal to their loving mercy.  In desperation, I sat in church, turned my eyes up to the cross and the stained glass windows, and let the feelings of my heart float outward and upward.  Words weren’t needed.  The pain was so deep I couldn’t formulate a request.  In complete and total submission, I prayed, “Please. Help.”

America is not an easy place in which to pray.  Firstly, we are bombarded with so much power and assertiveness, it never occurs to us that we need to pray.  Once prayer comes to mind, we are overwhelmed with all the possibilities of what we might pray for:  success, health, wealth, happiness, love…the list grows.  It would be selfish to pray for everything.  (Well, there are some people who will tell you that you can have it all!  Whatever that means.)  So which prayer should we start with?

My friend Marion touched me one Sunday morning in church with her comments.  Her husband of almost 50 years was dying of cancer.  She told the congregation she had prayed constantly to God throughout the months, wishing of course to have Bill cured and returned in health to her.  Then it struck her that perhaps this was a “bit too demanding,” and she simply asked God to take care of Bill and love him for her.

I remembered those same thoughts as I nursed my mother in those very same months.  Maybe curing Mother to leave her on earth was not in God’s plan or in Mother’s best interest either.  I prayed for God to take her in his hands, either here on earth or in heaven.  I prayed for God to let me accept Mother’s journey as part of his plan and to let me feel peace in submitting to the divine plan He has for all of us.

I think He is working to answer my prayers. Perhaps He sees I have given up power lunches, and I am thinking of giving away my Dress for Success suits.  They get in the way of prayer.  What I need now, and needed all along, is submissiveness, not assertiveness.

Prayer has become a “pop culture” phenomenon in the last year.  But just like so many things in America, I fear we are latching onto the words and looks of prayer without realizing that we need a new heart of prayer.  There is no way to remain assertive and also submit a prayer to God.  Assertiveness is based on being “full of ourselves.”  Prayer is based on being “less,” on being “empty,” and being “still and quiet.”

Prayer is an opening of my soul to a higher, better power and asking to be filled with a spirit purer than what any human can conceive.  Prayer is simple.  It is not improved by human ingenuity.  It is guileless.  With practice, it is unending, becoming a song of submission and praise that fills the day and keeps me looking ever upward, ever outward, and forever humble.

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