Praying as a Partnership with God
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by Susan Dillon
"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened." (Matthew 7:7-8)These familiar and thrilling words have taken on new meaning in the Development and Communications Committee. For the past few months we have been praying in a different way. We have always had a candle in the middle of our circle to remind us of God's presence throughout our meetings, and we usually have opened and closed with a brief invocation and chanted "Shalom," and often one or more people at a meeting would mentally withdraw into silent prayer. These ways of bringing prayer into committee and Board meetings have helped keep the focus of the business more on God than on our egos and personalities. If we were to express this silent, general form of prayer, it would be something like "Thy will be done."
Now the Development Committee is taking Matthew's words more literally and is praying in very specific ways in an effort to understand better how we can do God's will. We have gone from the rather passive "Thy will be done" to the active "What do You want us to do and how should we do it?" This new approach started when we were discussing how best to publicize the Spring programs offered locally--quiet days, retreats, workshops, etc. After spinning our wheels for awhile with one bright idea after another, we decided to pray for guidance. Before doing so we spent some time agreeing on what we wanted to ask God. Being specific about what we were asking was harder than we expected! Eventually we agreed that one of us would pray aloud something like this:
Dear God, Please show us the best way to let people know about Shalem's local programs. Shalem is offering these programs with the intention of supporting people in their relationships with You, and You know who is ready for such support. We have limited resources for publicizing our programs, and many possible ways of doing so, and we do not know what is the most effective way of reaching those You had in mind when You helped us plan these programs. Help us now know how to reach them. Please be very clear with us as we listen in trust for Your guidance.
We then sat in silence for a few minutes and were amazed to find that clarity about the issue emerged within each one of us. We reached a quick consensus on how to proceed. An issue that could have taken many hours and that we might have been tempted to revisit throughout the Spring seemed suddenly answered! We were so grateful, not only for the answer, but for how clear it was. We felt that asking for specific guidance from God and then listening in the silence to what emerged was how we were being invited to conduct all of our meetings.
We now conduct our Development Committee meetings as though we are a long-term contemplative group focused on Shalem's fundraising and communications issues. We begin with gentle body work, then a brief prayer or reading, and silence for about ten minutes. The leader then presents two or three general issues that need our attention. Examples of such issues might be our immediate fundraising needs, some long-term financial planning issue, the design of our program booklet, or how to publicize a specific event. Sometimes it is obvious which question should be addressed first, but if it isn't, we ask in prayer if it makes a difference from God's perspective. Once we begin focusing on an issue, we try to assume that we know nothing, and we begin asking God's advice from square one.
For example, we recently needed to know what to do about the $50,000 in contributions that we still haven't raised for this year's budget. Before asking what we should do to raise it, we asked whether we should do anything. We got a clear Yes. Then we asked if we should do anything more than we would normally do in April, May and June. Again, Yes. One answer leads to the next question. If we are to plan another event, what is it? Whom should we invite? How should it be publicized?
What happens in our meetings is a mystery to us, but this process feels like a partnership with God. Together we are bringing Shalem from the mysterious unknowable Source of All into physical form here and now. In our partnership, we ask God to offer (along with everything else) the plan and the know-how for Shalem, and we offer our physicality--our human form--to manifest what we're given. Through all this, we sense God is informing us and we are "in-forming" God!
Susan, a Shalem Board member and long-time Shalem participant, is a lawyer and mother of two.
© 2008 The Shalem Institute.