Who taught you to pray?

Quito, Ecuador

“Who taught you to pray,” I was asked. It’s a question I had to ponder a bit. There’s not much about prayer that I remember growing up in church. The prayers there were more intimidating - words perfectly crafted and spoken before the people. Words that might stir some emotion in me but rarely stirred me to do anything because God had it covered.
The most powerful prayers I experienced were those words prayed for me – for comfort in my distress, for awareness of Presence in challenges I faced, for wisdom and discernment. These prayers inspired me, moved me to be even just a little different after that moment. Maybe more calm, more clarity in choosing love, more kindness or understanding for others, or more courageous in facing what was before me. I discovered the experience of those prayers from Paul, a beloved pastor of my youth. Even as an adult, I remember a time of great sorrow that he prayed for me over the phone “lines” connecting us between TX and AZ. Something beyond me, yet deep within, calmed me for moving forward. I was not alone.
As I consider who taught me to pray, I think of ‘classes’ I attended, meditation practices I’ve learned. Yet with deeper reflection I know it is Paul who taught me to pray. Not by words spoken in moments but by how those words and meditations were lived after they were spoken. He lived his prayer – choosing love; working for the rights of all people; standing for justice; experiencing joy discovering more about God in the company of multiple faith traditions even while remaining committed in his own Christian understanding. Paul lived a life of prayer.
Maybe this is why I pray for change in myself more than I pray for change in the world. Because I’ve witnessed through Paul and many others that if I don’t live into what I pray for, nothing changes at all.

In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place,
and there he prayed….Let us go on to the neighboring towns so that I may proclaim the
message there also; for that is what I came out to do.
Mark 1: 35,38

Who taught you to pray?
in this together…