Dear Theophilus, 

In the last letter we came to the realization that a life that seeks to grow spiritually will inevitably confront obstacles and one of the most formidable of these is Satan. Having said this, let us now look at some other aspects of the path of prayer on which we are setting out.

Prayer should become a habit with us and that means praying at a given place in our house at a given time. I realize that this is difficult because of the changing circumstances in our lives. However, be that as it may, we should make an effort to develop some regularity in our prayer life.

The other thing is that prayer is a highly personal thing and what this means is that no-one can set all of the absolute rules which, if followed, will result in success. We are all different and we will all approach prayer in a slightly different manner. However, there is a framework which is common to us all and it is to this that I will pay particular attention.

Prayer is an absolute necessity for a Christian and yet, how miserable we are at it and how difficult it is for us to pray with any kind of diligence and discipline. There are so many things in our lives that seem to call out and distract us from pursuing prayer. I think that there are two fundamental reasons for this.

It is a well-known psychological discovery that rewards tend to encourage a repetition of a certain activity. This spurs us on and we pursue it. With prayer we fail, often, to see any results and this leads to the position: what's the point, it doesn't make much difference whether I pray or not. Things will go on as they have always done and it doesn't make one iota of difference whether any prayer comes from me. The other point is that we rarely feel the presence of God in any palpable way. It is to this last point that I want to focus our attention.

The relationship between God and us is very tricky. If God were to show Himself in all His might and power, this would be too much for us and would drive us out of our minds. God has to therefore, approach us gradually and carefully (and this is what sometimes leads us to doubt His very existence) and to continually respect our freedom. It is in this last point that we bring in our contribution. We must exercise our freedom to indicate to God our desire to know Him, which is after all what we were created for and what could represent immeasurable bliss for us. In a sense, our whole life is a preparation for meeting Him and for residing in Him eternally and what helps us in this, more than anything else, is prayer. This is why prayer is so important: it is a preparation for a momentous meeting. If we keep this perspective in mind, and not some of the childish ideas about prayer, maybe that will help us to better approach praying.

So, prayer is being aware of God. How do we do this? Well, as I said above, we must exercise our free will and make ourselves open to receive God's presence. And throughout the history of Christendom, many athletes of prayer have discovered suggestions which enable us to practise this presence of God which will make our prayer life much more meaningful to us. St. Paul himself calls on us to pray continually. At no time in Christian history has this been taken symbolically but it has always been interpreted literally. Moreover, this admonition applies not only to monks but to all Christians. By working at this throughout our lives (we will all succeed to different degrees; but no matter, it is the effort and disposition of our will that is crucial) we will be preparing ourselves for our meeting with our creator. Maybe a little illustration will show you what I am driving at. Suppose that you are asleep in a darkened room and you are awakened and a bright light is shining in your room. You will gaze at this light through squinting, hurting eyelids because you need to acclimatize to the sudden brightness. However, if you were not asleep, and not in a darkened room, the introduction of another light would not faze you at all. It is the same with us. We slowly get used, more and more, to the light of God, through our prayers, so that at the end of our earthly lives, we are better prepared to encounter God.

Before we get to the practical aspects of prayer I would like to address some of the objections that are often heard with respect to prayer. Why is prayer necessary at all? It seems that God is simply asking to be lauded and praised like some Middle Eastern potentate. Why should we ask for anything in prayer? Doesn't God already know everything and He surely does not need our assistance? These, and charges similar to these, betray an ignorance of what prayer really is and what its purpose is. Its purpose is not so much to please God or to give God something that is necessary for Him. The primary purpose is help us to grows, as the discussion above has tried to show. God is not some despot but He is giving us a chance and the possibility of approaching Him closer and getting to know Him more intimately. This is the real essence of prayer. As for petitionary prayer that has its own value as well, a value which is sometimes lost in our over-emphasis of cause and effect. We pray and something happens, and if doesn't then prayer is a sham and just mere psychological self-manipulation. There is something else operating here. When we petition we express our deepest concerns and feelings and in this expression, we get to know ourselves better. We need to express our deepest feelings and petitionary prayer offers us this consolation. It is definitely not a matter of telling God what to do. A person may ask this or that of us, when they are healthy and well. But when they are ill, especially seriously ill, we get to what is really important and all this falls away and our mere presence is what is asked for. When the chips are down, when despair starts to crowd in, it is presence that we offer to those in need. And this is so true of prayer when we literally come before God. He offers us His presence and we offer Him ours and that is all that is necessary.

There is an illuminating episode in the Book of Genesis which touches on this very subject. Adam transgresses and what does he do? He hides from God and that is what humanity has been doing for all of its earthly history - hiding from God. In prayer, we reverse this. Instead of hiding from God, we come before God and say here I am, present for you. This is the essence of prayer - to be present for God as much as we can, in spite of all the distractions, in spite of all the dizzying thoughts that flit through our minds. And when we come and stand before God in our conscious, focused being, we begin to pray and things such as petitions and praises and mourning are simply exchanges that are the natural result of an interaction between two intimate friends. The point of our life is to learn to love God's presence and we practise and rehearse this presence through prayer.

One of the most important aspects of prayer is silence. This is sometimes hard for our frenetic age to understand or appreciate. What's the point of silence? We are not doing anything and there is so much to be done. Silence seems like such a waste of time. There is this seeming pointlessness in prayer. There are many valuable things in life which on the surface seem pointless. Recently, a very successful news anchor, in New York, gave up his job without any chance of returning to it. It paid him in the millions of dollars and he gave all this up to spend the remaining days of his father's life with him. Pragmatically one sees no reason in this. What good did this sacrifice on the part of the son accomplish? He couldn't keep his father alive because of the terminal illness. The only reason for his action was love and in this twisted and fallen world, love often appears as something weak and unnecessary. There is something of the essence of prayer here because prayer, as well, often seems pointless and weak (at least by the standards of the world) and does not seem to produce any tangible results. We need to be constantly reminded of this.

I would like to return to the story of Adam hiding from God because there is another important truth here. What is instructive is why Adam hid from God. He hid because he had sinned and he felt guilty and wanted to hide from God. This experience of Adam is common to us also. We hide from God because we feel that we are sinners and somehow it is inappropriate for us to meet with God. This is another of those subtle temptations of Satan because you see what our sin does in this case. It separates us from God whereas we should bring our sin before God's gaze so that we may be forgiven and cleansed. Ironically, the very need for meeting God often becomes a barrier that prevents our coming before Him. It is crucially important that we do not try to hide (we can't really succeed in this, anyway) and bring our sins before God for forgiveness on a regular daily basis. This also has the positive effect of making us more conscious of our misdeeds and thereby enabling us to keep from repeating them.

In the next letter I want to outline to you how I approach my discipline of prayer. Meanwhile, I remain, as always,

Yours truly,

Bar-Abbas