On Learning the Collects

Children once had to learn the collect off by heart every Sunday. What value in this practice? Such memory work is no longer asked of children: reciting poetry, learning Shakespeare, learning collects. But maybe adults could ask it of ourselves.

            Collects remind us of the passage of seasons and shape of the year, something the commercial secular dimension distorts for its purposes. Some collects are very old, coming down from Late Antiquity: a collect gathers up history, without which we have no guide to this world. A collect is concise, prayer in a nutshell.

            Collects begin with a vocative: O God, Everliving God, Blessed Lord, teaching us divine address. And divine qualities follow: ‘who has caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning.’ The God who does. We pray precisely: ‘keep us … from all things that may hurt us’ and for why? To accomplish the things that God would have done. In Jesus’ name, collects will conclude.

            Memorising collects can be a meditative practice. Mindfully recollecting – ‘Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them’ – we can return to them in times of stress, distraction, or self-criticism. It brings a touch of the divine to ordinary negativity. It places us in the divine calendar, at home in our minds.

On Praying Some Prayers

The past weeks have been conducive to prayer. Earth trembles, cities crumble, people lie fearful in rain without shelter. Men face firing squads, women slavery; thousands drown fleeing wars and tyrannies. What prayers to pray?

            Do I have the right to pray for my own health and agency? Every day I thank God for treatments and think one little miracle wouldn’t hurt. I lie in comfort in a brilliant hospital, smiling angelic-faced attendants drip-feeding miraculous medicines. While others lie in rain or drown in cold sea. What prayers to pray?

            All over the world, governments get it wrong, and imbuing the hearts of ministers with righteousness is slower than the drip in my hand. Prisoners die by noose, gun and knife, and a variety of inventions devised by inventive souls. The Lady Jane Grey, a fervent Evangelical, asked her executioners: ‘May I say this Psalm?’ and began Miserere Mihi, aged 16.

            You can pray for all prisoners and captives, and sometimes this is heard: nearly 300 women and girls freed from captivity by military action. I can send money to Oxfam, and hope for blankets, water, shelter, to be given. Brushing past my conscience, still praying for myself. What prayers to pray?

            Or you can pray, with the Buddhists, for the welfare of all sentient beings. The West has been taught to say this, thank God, but much enlightenment must come to pass.

            The Lord, says the Psalm, is plenteous in mercy. What prayers to pray?

On Lifting the Wrist: Prayer

Every once in a while something clicks in while I’m trying to learn. With the piano, I’ve lately discovered an elementary concept: I have to lift my hand off the keyboard at certain moments or get entangled in my own fingers. I’ll have to practice this, as I’ve been hugging the keyboard tight.

            In all arts, there comes a time when you have to stop clinging. Clinging, clutching, gripping, hanging on for dear life. In drawing, you'll  find the draft doesn’t have to resemble the finished image in any fine respect. In music, less clinging and more singing. You can only get there from here.

            Is the same possibly true of prayer? Can I praise and bless with a light touch? God hears so many petitions. Do petitions grip and clutch? Of course, from time to time things reach a dire stage where there’s nothing to do but appeal to God.

            Praise and blessing are maybe like breathing. Breathe in: praise. Breathe out: bless. Always bless an attacker. Ask the martial artists. Is the pause between one breath and another like lifting the wrist, taking your hand off it for a second, letting it go?