Communion of Prayer

“With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints” Ephesians 6:18.

There are days, in fact specific moments within days, where out of the blue a deep sense of sorrow fills my soul. It is as if a great catastrophe hit and my heart felt the blow. Have you ever felt that? 

From my egocentric, Western perspective on life and the universe, I assume this sensation has to do with me, myself alone. I assume there is something happening in my personal world that needs my personal attention. Maybe I have an undiscovered trauma from a forgotten past that was triggered by a conversation or a smell.  Maybe I'm realizing how little I've accomplished with my life, or maybe I'm feeling sorry for myself about some injustice done. 

But what if there is another, larger, more expansive option. What if the sudden overflow of grief comes from a more cosmic connection than my pragmatically educated mind wants to entertain? What if I really am more joined with the earth and its inhabitants than I am comfortable with, and the cries of the masses and of creation are what I feel in those out-of-the-blue blues? What if our Father made us this way and he created our innermost parts to be in communion and in concert with one another and all he created? 

I suppose I’ve always believed this in some sense and  secretly wanted it to be true. I’ve seen the way the Father made his creation and how it all works in chorus to lift praise to him. The heavens cry out his glory in majestic form. Can’t we enter in with their worship? Are we so very different that we would be excluded from their congregational praise? I believe we can and do join in. And if we can join together with the whole of creation to praise him, could there not also be a sense of communal sorrow which we may experience? The earth groans under the curse, eager to be free of it and at full liberty to bring him praise. Are we not part of that curse? Do we not groan for the suffering of our earth?

This thought has teeth for me causing me to rethink how I interpret those sudden moments of grief. It calls me to look outward to all of creation, to the many who live and breathe on this planet and lift them up in prayer, and to allow their sorrow to penetrate, so my participation might lessen their burden, if such a thing is possible. Instead of turning inward, introspectively digging to see what personal issue I might have, though there are times that is needed, this thought calls me to forget myself in the best possible sense, and to intercede for others, even for creation itself. 

There is no doubt the earth suffers for now under the governance of malevolent forces. Blessedly, we also know those powers are limited and finite. This does not mean, though, that there is not pain and great misery now. Perhaps our hearts were made in such a way as to have a sensitivity to and a receptivity for those sorrows erupting from the vastness of creation so that we might bear the burden together. 

We are part of creation, inextricably entwined. 

“…I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men” 1 Timothy 2:1.