Does God pray?

I was talking with a friend the other day about miracles. Also a physician, he briefly described some incredible stories that have been documented regarding people who have inexplicably recovered from advanced illnesses. Disseminated cancers. Progressive neurologic diseases. Conditions that most clinicians would recognize as offering little hope for long-term improvement. Nonetheless, illnesses from which people had – to the medical profession’s surprise – completely healed.

“Spontaneous remissions,” I said.

“Yeah,” he replied. “Real miracles.”

The conversation stuck with me. In my medical career, I have personally seen some amazing things. Sometimes those things have involved dramatic healing responses. Sometimes they have related to clinical instincts and therapeutic actions. All have been unexpected. Each was stunning.

Were they miracles?

Another friend was recently in the emergency room for a problem that required surgery. He was stable but his health, in general, was fragile. Although the procedure he needed was relatively minor, the general anesthesia that would permit the procedure to be done was a major concern for his family. How would his system respond? My friend was not worried. He placed his trust in the surgeon and his faith in a power greater than the surgeon’s. He was calm. He only requested that the Catholic priest visit before the procedure. The priest did and had everyone gather around the man in the hospital bed. People held hands. A simple prayer was said, together. Minutes later a test result was reported to the surgeon that changed the original diagnosis. Surgery was not needed. My friend could be treated without anesthesia.

A miracle?

We use the word in different ways. There is the “Miracle on 34th Street”, a story replayed during the Christmas holidays. There is the “Miracle on Ice”, a tale about the 1980 Olympic gold medal run of the U.S. hockey team. And then there are so-called “medical miracles”, people who beat the odds and get better in the face of remarkable circumstances. The power of our collective spirit is impressive. Astounding things happen when we cheer, support, and implore for each other.

But it is unpredictable. Not everything we wish, hope, and yearn for happens. We are often deeply disappointed and saddened. Despite humble foundations, our most heartfelt entreaties and appeals do not guarantee results. Spontaneous healings from “untreatable” cancers are not so common.

I don’t pretend to fully understand prayer as an engagement distinct from hope. I know they are different; prayer includes a petition to a higher power while hope may be aspirational without being inspired. Still, there is sometimes a fine line between them, especially when the being to whom the intention is focused is not necessarily tangible, physically palpable. Do I have to aim the beseechments of my soul at God, Allah, Buddha, or another concept of the supreme being for them to have a higher likelihood of being heard?

And why should I assume that God, her or himself, does not pray?

It is wrong, I understand, to anthropomorphize the divine. And yet that is how I experience the greater good, the universal positive, the prime moving force of life in the cosmos: through forms. Through others. The world in which we live is not perfect. It may have begun from such a state, or it may be arcing towards such a state, but it appears, from my finite perspective, to pulse at present far from perfection. So if there is a wisdom, a current, a source of eternal love that is somehow engaged with me, with you, and with us – why should it not be capable of engaging in prayer for us? We have freedom of choice; the world does not appear to be deterministic. So why wouldn’t a higher power – God – not want to pray for us and the choices that we make? We have a history of making bad decisions. We need all the help we can get to keep from making too many more.

I am likely spinning within a tumble of poorly formed ideas. And perhaps I am using words such as prayer in a slipshod manner. It reassures me, however, to think that a spiritual consciousness which exists before, during, and after us is somehow able and interested in expressing love for us through even the simplest of prayers. My parents are gone from this life. They continue (I hope) in some form in the next. If I can pray for them, if I can pray to them, and if they might be in turn be able to pray for me, is it such a leap of logic – or faith – to wonder if the spiritual collective of the divine might not, in some marvelous and interconnected way, pray for each other? Is it wrong to wonder if the divine itself might not pray? Could the divine even be unbounded by and through prayer?

I have no doubt that miracles occur. In fact, I think that they may happen more frequently than we recognize. Some are fantastically substantial, such as a sudden healing from serious illness. Others are marvelously missable, such as a decision to do something during a daily routine that leads to an unexpected positive encounter or occurrence. All offer stunning insight into the interconnected nature of life, love, and our capacity to care. All are, from the restricted vantage of science and human understanding, wonderfully unexplainable.

I pray that prayer is infinite.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.