Page 12 - 1.News and Views Spring 2025 for Jim.

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Reflections on the Quiet Garden afternoon on Quakers and Prayer, December 6 2024
Stuart Yates

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Let me begin by referencing David Saunders in the Friend of September 5 2024:

Types of prayer, firstly the traditional (6), then the Jesuit version (5)

Traditional: Awareness, Adoration, Thanksgiving, Repentance, Petition, Intercession.

Jesuit: I'm here, You're here, Thank You, Sorry, Help.

The Jesuit version may appear to be somewhat lightweight, but is possibly more straightforward and
understandable than the Latin inspired traditional words. The question remains, whichever version is
preferred: how do Quakers regard the concept and practice of prayer? Although quaker Faith and
Practice devotes some space to the subject, my experience is that Friends do not refer to it very much
and as the act of praying usually implies to someone or something other rather than being confined to
the one praying, a somewhat circular process, the subject runs into the theist/non-theist terrain,
wherein prayer seems to be pointless. It also impinges on the subject of belief, as the effect of prayer -

unlike other actions such as practical help etc – cannot be proved or demonstrated. However, the

effects of prayer can be believed in or denied.

I will put theism/non-theism aside. That is a rabbit hole not particularly fruitful for the present topic,

as, presumably, non-theists do not believe in prayer to a non-human recipient. (Or do they? Maybe I
need to be enlightened) Belief, (the word seems positively blasphemous to some Quakers), I will
address to some extent. In terms of naming that which transcends the human dimension, I shall use
the word God. Please mentally replace God with your preferred name. I have no name for the
transcendent, which is beyond words.

So, what is missing from both versions of the types of prayer? In my view, the most important word/
action/way of being. That word is listening in its various forms. Listening is the very first requisite in
the process of praying. Awareness only partially captures that first stance. We can be aware of many
things, e.g. a passing car, the sound of a blackbird, a screaming baby – not ours - on a plane, but this
sort of awareness does not necessarily lead to listening, sometimes in fact leads to the very opposite. If
I define awareness (of God) in terms of listening, or listening for God, then I believe that is the first step
in prayer.

There is a need to be available, to be present, pay attention, be open to be addressed. To be open to
what can be likened to a tap on the shoulder, a tap that we do not ignore, shut out, but welcome,
because we hope, or expect, or, yes, believe depending upon our previous experience, that what we
shall receive is significant. What we receive may well be wordless, but it surely corresponds to a
favourite word of early Quakers: a leading. That God has something for us, which may be difficult to
understand, but needs to be heeded. Is not that tap, when we are centring down, or have centred
down, in Meeting for Worship, a signal that we are connected with ‘something other’? And also that
there is at least a possibility that something significant may be revealed by that ‘something other’, to
which we should listen? Is it too simplistic to believe that something may be being required of us, so
therefore we should listen to it?

An old friend of ours, a former Bishop of Singapore, referred to this call to attention a ‘nudge’. He even
tested it, as we do a concern. If two more nudges quickly followed he felt assured it was from God and
heeded it accordingly. Not too different to clerks sensing the direction of a meeting: as a clerk I never
thought it was through my cleverness that I discerned, or appeared to discern, the direction the

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