Episode Summary

This episode is about learning how to pray. It is not about learning the words in some sectarian prayer book but rather about learning how to give thanks for our blessings and how to develop this spiritual gratitude even if you have some problems with praying because of the beliefs contained in the prayers.

Episode Notes

More broadly, this episode is about learning how to do something new. It is about the amazingly useful common saying, “Fake it till you make it.” The feeling of awkwardness that blocks us is a universal feeling and this episode offers a way out of this spiritual blockage which I call pretend dancing. 

This phrase and this idea came to me during a book signing with Father Tom where there was a band booked for after the signing. I was uncomfortable with such hoopla for the opening of a children’s book about God. I was sulking at a table when Tommy asked me to get up and dance. I refused and he said, “If you can’t really dance, why don’t you try pretend dancing?” Reluctantly I agreed and then, after some desultory and uninspired foot shuffling, Aretha Franklin’s song “Respect” was played and by the end of it I was no longer pretend dancing. I was really dancing (well dancing for me). That is when I learned that to do something with conviction you first have to pretend to do it. That is true for so many things and it is definitely true for praying. Pretend to do it until you are no longer pretending. 

C.S. Lewis, the British philosopher, novelist, poet, Oxford don, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian, broadcaster, lecturer, Christian apologist, author of the Chronicles of Narnia, and prophet of pretend dancing wrote, "Do not waste time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this, we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone you will presently come to love him." 

Buddhism is a religion based upon pretend dancing. For Buddhism all existence is pretend existence. The Buddhist philosopher Thich Nhat Hanh offered up the single best definition of pretend dancing. He taught, "Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy."

This poem entitled, "Praying" is by my favorite contemporary poet, Mary Oliver and it also affirms the value of sincere prayer. It is from her book of poems entitled, Thirst, and it is perfect,

It doesn't have to be

the blue iris, it could be

weeds in a vacant lot, or a few

small stones; just

pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try

to make them elaborate, this isn't

a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which

another voice may speak.

Join me in this episode for some joyful pretend dancing.