Over the past several months I have occasionally accompanied Jeanne to a local Lutheran church where has been a regular for a while. They are in between pastors; the interim pastor is a “retired” Lutheran minister who stepped into the void which in many churches can take a long time to fill. Pastor Dan is a gifted sermonizer, courageous in his public commitment to justice, and a person whom I intend to get to know better over the coming weeks.
Jeanne was scheduled as the lector last Sunday, so we arrived at church a bit early so she could settle into the readings. I brought along a signed copy of my 2019 book Prayer for People Who Don’t Believe in God that I had promised Dan the last time I saw him a few Sundays ago. As I sat in my pew with a few minutes to spare before the service began, I opened the book to a late chapter which reminded me of something I had not thought of since the book was published.
Prayer and the Middle Voice
In her 2013 book Still, Lauren Winner suggests that a new angle on understanding prayer is offered by considering something that the English language does not have: a middle voice. I learned about the middle voice when I took two years of Classical Greek as an undergraduate. The middle voice is a “middle” between the active and passive voices, between doing something and having something done to you, between being the subject of an action and the object of that action. Although English does not have a middle voice, there are hints of it in sentences like “That whiskey drank smoothly” or “Politicians bribe easily.” As Winner describes, “The middle is used when a subject is affected by the action of the verb; when the verb somehow transforms, reshapes the subject.”
Why this foray into grammar and voice? Because there is something about the middle voice that seems appropriate to religious language. Think about liturgy, baptism, and participation in any number of religious occasions. Think about sharing the peace, kneeling at the altar, participating in the Eucharist or communion, or saying the creed. Whatever a person imagines is going on when she engages with others in such activities, there is undoubtedly a commitment both to acting and being acted upon. A person is open to being changed when he engages in the actions that constitute a religious life. I know that there is something more at work than just myself when I choose to enter and engage in such an environment—I take responsibility for my end and expect that in doing so I have invited change. Another agent is at work; through my actions, I demonstrate that this agent’s work on me is welcomed.
The Sacred Dance Between the Human and Divine
The middle voice seems entirely appropriate to prayer. Winner writes that “if English had a middle voice, I would use it to speak of prayer: I would let the middle remind me that I am changed by this action, by these words, this suppliant’s posture.” Winner’s insight reminds me of something that Simone Weil wrote about frequently. Weil believed that each human being has the capacity, perhaps even the responsibility, to invite the divine into our human reality. As discussed in an earlier chapter, cultivating attentiveness, the ability to turn one’s attention toward something other than oneself is a key to engaging in the sacred dance between the human and divine that might be a way of describing and understanding prayer. Our attentiveness indicates our consent to interact intimately with a God who willingly does so, but only when invited by consenting individuals.
Pray Without Ceasing
What are our natural capacities that make prayer possible? And in what ways, as we use these capacities, might we expect to be changed? As noted in the previous chapter, when Paul tells the church at Thessalonica to “pray without ceasing,” he’s urging each of them to become a certain sort of person rather than advising them to start a twenty-four-hour prayer chain. Seeking to be a prayer is something worth pursuing, regardless of what or who one thinks God might be. As Karen Armstrong points out, prayer sincerely offered as a natural expression, over time, effects change that is worth committing to.
Prayer teaches us to use language in a different way: to thank, praise, and beg pardon wholeheartedly, without holding anything back. And as we do that, we chip away at our egotism and that in turn will make us a force for good to the people around us and make the world a better place.
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