大象传媒

From Nick Baines, the Bishop of Leeds:聽
I am now on my tenth listen of Bob Dylan鈥檚 new album Rough and Rowdy Ways. And one of the lines that jumps out at me is this: 鈥淏e reasonable, mister, be honest, be fair, Let all of your earthly thoughts be a prayer.鈥� One of the surprising things to emerge from lockdown so far is the massive surge of people searching online for prayer or connection to some sort of collective worship. Researchers in Copenhagen saw a 50% increase in Google searches for 鈥榩rayer鈥� over 95 countries. And maybe this shouldn鈥檛 be so surprising, after all. For when things get tough, or life breaks down in some uncontrollable way, so the distractions from deeper questions fall away.聽
But, I want to ask, what is this prayer thing all about, anyway? When I was younger I used to think of prayer as an attempt to change God鈥檚 mind - urging an improvement in my own or others鈥� circumstances. When I grew up, and had a bit more experience of both the world and prayer, I moved to seeing prayer as essentially about changing me. The great writer CS Lewis once wrote: 鈥淚 pray because I can鈥檛 help myself... I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn鈥檛 change God. It changes me.鈥� Why did he think that? I think it鈥檚 because prayer involves being exposed to a view of oneself, the world and other people that challenges me to see, think and live differently. This is why Christians pray 鈥渋n the name of Jesus鈥� - you know, trying to see through the eyes of the Jesus we read about in the gospels.聽
And the world looks different when seen through that lens. Bob Dylan goes on to sing about a 鈥済ospel of love鈥�. And by this he doesn鈥檛 mean something sentimental. Love is the costly outpouring of oneself and ends up being - in Christian terms - cross-shaped. So, when I pray - wherever and however that might be ... and whether alone or in a group - my eyes look to God and the world, but the change has to happen to me ... so I can be part of changing the world. Amen to that.