‘Be still and know that I am God’: the Latin imperative for ‘be still’ is vacate. As Simon Tugwell explains, ‘God invites us to take a holiday [vacation], to stop being God for a while, and let Him be God.’ Too often we think of prayer as a serious chore, something that must be scheduled around other appointments, shoe-horned in among other pressing activities. We miss the point, says Tugwell: ‘God is inviting us to take a break, to play truant. We can stop doing all those important things we have to do in our capacity as God, and leave it to Him to be God.’ [pg. 19]
‘Why pray? I have asked this question almost every day of my Christian life, especially when God’s presence seems faraway and I wonder if prayer is a pious form of talking to myself. I have asked it when I read theology, wondering what use there may be in repeating what God must surely know. My conclusions will unfold only gradually, but I begin here because prayer has become for me much more than a shopping list of requests to present to God. It has become a re-alignment of everything, I pray to restore the truth of the universe, to gain a glimpse of the world, and of me, through the eyes of God. In prayer I shift my point of view away from my own selfishness. I climb above the timber line and look down at the speck that is myself. I gaze at the stars and recall what role I or any of us play in a universe beyond comprehension. Prayer is the act of seeing reality from God’s point of view.’ [pg. 21]
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