In a recent article for Erasmus, I wrote on the nature of prayer. Please find an extract from this article, and of course, go check out the full article on the website!

Extract:

Marcus Aurelius once argued that prayer ought not be for the fulfilment of human desires, but rather for the purging of said desires. In a world so focused on material success and aims, his words are counter-cultural, perplexing, and somewhat impractical. One can imagine a child asking, “If God can do anything for us, why shouldn’t we just ask for what we want? Would He not give it to us?” 

“No son,” you may say, “you mustn’t treat God like that! God is a Being far greater than us, to ask and expect Him to grant our whimsical desires would be disrespectful…it would be diminishing God to the role of our servant. A very good servant for that matter.” 

All well and good?

Not so. 

Intellectually, we all recognise the problem with the idea of treating God like a genie in a bottle. Nonetheless it doesn’t stop us from having such a relationship with prayer. You close the bottle when it is inconvenient, perhaps put it on the shelf, lock it away. But when you most need help, you rush to it, beg for it to return, thinking that it would all of a sudden do away with all your challenges. 

Are we not all guilty? 

“Slow down Josh,” I can hear someone saying, “why write about prayer? What does this have to do with the secular? I don’t believe in the supernatural!” 

The idea of prayer need not be constrained to a dialogue with a supernatural entity. Of course, having a Personal Other can facilitate the direction of meditation. However, prayer, devoid of its supernatural implications, is still a useful practice of meditation, an internal reflection on the state of one’s soul and penetration into your position in the wider scheme of reality. By doing so, one is confronted with their own finitude, beckoned to continue an upward journey towards the improvement and purification of the self.

It is for this reason that I have decided to meditate on the question of how we should pray, or if you would like to use more secular terms, how we should meditate. To aid this pursuit I will draw influence from the stoicism of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations and the wisdom found in the Christian tradition. 

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