What is Prayer and How to Begin
A New Episode of On Being, With Roberta Bondi
Buried treasure from the On Being archive!
Krista writes of this conversation from the earliest pre-history of On Being:
In the years in which I was on a whole new spiritual and intellectual adventure that changed the direction of my life — years which led to the creation of this show — I befriended a delightful, brilliant, straight-talking theologian named Roberta Bondi. She’s now retired. At that point, she was on the faculty of the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. We were placed together as roommates at a five-day consultation. We fell deep into conversation about all kinds of things — life and love and God, a subject that fascinated us both. She’d written a book called Memories of God, and she’d written a series of books about the eccentric, dazzling wisdom of spiritual rebels and innovators known as the desert fathers and mothers of the 3rd century. These were people who believed that the established church — at that time the Church of Rome — had grown cold and remote from very heart of the impulses that brought it into the world in the first place: the rootedness in wisdom and not mere knowledge, the humility over against power, the core moral and spiritual values.
Then, not that long ago in our world of institutions ceasing to make sense, someone I very much admire told me he was interested in picking up a practice of prayer. He had no idea how to begin or really even what this would be about – he just knew it was a longing he wanted to follow. The first thing that came to my mind to share with him is this somewhat eccentric, rich little half hour I had with Roberta in the earliest piloting of what eventually became On Being. Her wisdom about what it means to be a person who prays, in conversation and relationship with God, whoever God is and whatever God means, has formed me ever after. I am so delighted to share it now with you.
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Find an excellent transcript of this show, edited by humans, on our show page.
Reminded me of words from Mary Oliver:
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.
I've always regarded prayer as a calling forth of that spark of the Divine that already dwells within every one of us, such that it saturates our being, driving out fear and negativity and helping us to be our best selves...peaceful, grateful, loving, connected, and centered. The fears and troubles of this world will always creep back in to pollute the spirit, so prayer must be a daily exercise, or perhaps even a constant ongoing conversation, or fellowship, with that Divine from which we came forth, and to which we shall return, and meld back into.