And now for something a little different…
I generally reserve my website for things related to my artwork or the workings of my studio. I’m posting this essay here partly because I need a place to park it besides Facebook, and partly because it touches on the core of who I am and is thus related to the art I make. If this topic isn’t of interest to you please feel free skip this posting and know that I will continue posting occasional updates about art here and on my studio Facebook page and Instagram feeds.
And then I asked them to pray!
Russ Little, 16 June 2020
Over the past two weeks I’ve called on a wide circle of family, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances to pray for my husband, Dan, who is in a trauma ICU fighting to recover from a near-fatal car crash.
I asked people to pray, and that’s made me think a lot about what exactly that means. What is prayer? What does it mean for me to make such a request? What is my own prayer life like? Is it hypocritical to ask for something that I’m not even sure that I do all that well? Part of the way that I’ve been working my way through these thoughts is by writing this short statement—writing it and rewriting it.
I’m not especially interested in proselytizing, evangelizing, or any other “izing.” I think that faith is a very personal choice and I believe that it’s arguably a faithless act to assume that only one tradition or belief system is right, and thus all others are inherently wrong or evil. So, you do you. As long as that means that you’re kind to others, strive to practice diversity, equality, respect, and love, and you’re grateful for the good things in your life, then I think we’re both headed in the same direction.
And yet, I asked people to pray. What if the concept of “prayer” is foreign, off putting, or downright antithetical to your own beliefs? Am I adding to the grief and confusion folks are already feeling about this terrible accident by throwing prayer into the mix? I think the answers lie in a shared understanding of what prayer means to me. If I take this moment to say a little more about my own understanding of this particularly loaded word, “prayer,” then… We’ll, I don’t know. Maybe we’ll all be more comfortable.
I’m not going to regurgitate what I’ve been taught about prayer. This is what I personally believe—prayer according to Russ. I use prayer as an umbrella term to encompass the many forms of mindful contemplation, by which I mean gently holding a thought with an open mind, an open heart, and a willingness to welcome new feelings, insight, or healing. My thoughts about formal intercessory prayer (asking for a specific thing on behalf of another) are complicated. I’m not comfortable with the notion of a quid pro quo relationship with the universe—“If I say X or promise Y, then Z will happen”. But, I do pray for others. I think prayer does two things, one tangible and one intangible. First, I think that prayer—mindfulness, presence, contemplation, and openness—can be a source of personal growth and healing. It can make your own life better, and a healthy, grounded you means an incrementally healthier world. Second—and this is the harder part to embrace—I believe that the same prayer that expands your own heart and mind has the potential to reach others, either through a change brought about in you or through some intangible and inexplicable metaphysical shift.
So, when I ask you to pray for Dan, me, and our family, what I’m asking is for you to bring us into your mind in those quiet moments and hold us in love. My hope is that this will bring you peace and hope and that some of that will spill over to Dan himself.
As to the mechanics of prayer, they don’t need to involve mats, altars, incense, icons, beads, or other appliances unless those things help you. The two best prayer times for me are while walking and when I’m in the studio. I’m a working studio artist. When I’m painting, drawing, or stitching it’s helpful for me to disengage as much of my conscious mind as possible as a way of opening up creative flow. A quieter mind also allows me to hold a concern or another person in my heart while I work. Walking does a similar thing. Getting out of the house and putting one foot in front of the other creates a similar kind of open inner space. I also use prayer beads, not a rosary but sort of. Working my fingers slowly along a circle of beads as I walk helps me to hold focus on a specific thing—or gently return to that focus when I drift. It’s a balancing act between focusing and not focusing so much that you close your mind to all else. It’s also worth noting that keeping the beads in your pocket while you walk might be discrete but it also looks a little...um...suspicious.
If you’ve read this far then you have my thanks. I hope that by sharing these thoughts I’ve created a place of common ground between us. Prayer need not be the elephant in the room. Feel free to call it by another name that’s better aligned with your own beliefs. I hope that some form of prayerful engagement will bring you peace, improve our world, and bring healing and grace to those you love.
With love,
Russ