Sunday, February 1, 2009

Prayer without words

I'm also reading C.S.Lewis on prayer.

The great C.S. thinks that prayer without words is a possibility and even the superior form of prayer (though difficult to achieve):

For many years after my conversion I never used any ready-made forms except the Lord's prayer. In fact, I tried to pray without words at all -- not to verbalise the mental acts. Even in praying for others I tended to avoid avoid their names all together and substituted mental images of them. I still think that prayer without words is best - if one can really achieve it. But now I see that in trying to make it my daily bread I was counting on a greater mental and spiritual strength than I really have. To pray successfully without words one needs to be 'at the top' of one's form. Otherwise the mental acts become merely imaginative or emotional acts - and a fabricated emotion is a miserable affair. C.S. Lewis, Prayer: Letters to Malcolm, #2.
Karl Barth disagrees:
There can hardly be prayer which does not shape indefinite thoughts and words... On the whole, wordless prayer cannot be regarded as true prayer. CD III/4, 111-112.
I am thoroughly verbal. I can hardly have a thought without translating it into words. Much less a prayer.

But what about you? Do you ever pray without words?

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