Three Prayers You'll Want to Pray

George H. Donigian

• Publisher: Morehouse Publishing
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780819229076
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Prayer and praying takes a variety of forms, but in today's secular world, many people aren't sure what it is or how to do it. Donigian (re)introduces three prayers – the Lord's Prayer, the Serenity Prayer and Dag Hammarskjold's famous prayer from Markings – as gifts for those who are uncertain or unclear about prayer…and praying. Study guide included.

Prayer

1

Scale: The Diplomat’s
Prayer

During a medical exam in the emergency room, the doctor asked me, “What do you do?” His earlier questions attempted to learn why I had fallen for the third time in a month. On this fall my nose broke when I hit concrete steps. The CT scan showed only a broken nose. The doctor eliminated stroke and TMI as potential causes for the falls. My heart was beating well and did not indicate a heart attack. I felt fine, but I was in the hospital for the second time in a month and for the fourth time in two years while different medical teams tried to penetrate the mysterious cause of my sudden downward drops.

“I write and edit books and pastor a small church. It’s a part-time position—whatever ‘part-time’ means for a pastor.”

“What do you write?”

“I’m currently writing a book on prayers you’ll want to pray. One of the prayers comes from a man named Dag Hammarskjold, and it goes like this: ‘For all that has been—Thanks! / To all that shall be—Yes!’”

“I like that,” said the doctor. “I’m a Jain, and that prayer covers a lot of territory. Repeat it so I can learn to pray it myself.”

For all that has been—Thanks!

To all that shall be—Yes!

Dag Hammarskjold wrote those two lines in Markings, a journal he prepared for posthumous publication. The words may not seem like a typical prayer, which usually includes a salutation (God, or Eternal God, or Holy One, or any of the infinite titles we prefer to identify the Ultimate One). Most prayers include conclusions, but this prayer remains marvelously open ended. To me, Hammarskjold’s two simple lines embrace all the fullness and complexity of our lives. Take time now to read aloud the two lines of the prayer. Let those two lines rest in your head and your heart, your sense of being.

I do not always agree with the notion of thanksgiving for all that has happened, especially not in the moment. When I was twenty-one years old, I gave a deposition in the legal action that my mother brought to declare my father no longer mentally competent to operate his business interests. I explained in that deposition what I knew concerning the family grocery store and rental properties. Two years earlier I left college to operate the grocery store during one of my father’s hospitalizations. Giving the deposition created anguish and other emotional turmoil for me, compounded seven months later when my father died. Looking back, I realize that his diabetes and heart problems contributed to his business problems. For all that has been—Thanks? That lesson I would have preferred not to experience! Not for that chaos felt in my life and in the lives of countless children caught in the triangulation of their parents’ battles. On the other hand, I learned enough to avoid the same mistakes with my own family.

The Diplomat

Dag Hammarskjold’s life is relatively easy to outline, but in other ways Hammarskjold’s life is as unknown to us as the lives of the mystics who influenced him.

Born in 1905 to an influential Swedish family, Hammarskjold earned multiple degrees, including law and finance, and first worked for the Central Bank of Sweden. Hammarskjold felt a calling to civic or government service and followed the example of his father, who was Sweden’s Prime Minister from 1914 until 1917, and other relatives, who had served the Swedish government as far back as the seventeenth century. In 1949 Hammarskjold became a Cabinet Secretary in the Swedish government. In 1953 he became the second Secretary General of the relatively new United Nations. He organized the machinery of the new institution, born after World War II in the hope that dialogue could stop the launch of war. The United Nations Assembly reelected him in 1957. On September 18, 1961, Hammarskjold was flying to negotiate a peace treaty in the Congo when the airplane crashed and the 16 people on board died. Conspiracy theories abound concerning the plane crash and whether Hammarskjold’s death resulted from Cold War maneuvers between the superpowers. No matter the cause, Hammarskjold’s death was tragic. He may have been able to negotiate a lasting peace settlement in the Congo and saved the lives of many. (In the FWIW department: Barbara Kingsolver powerfully and poignantly described the civil war in Congo in The Poisonwood Bible, and I recommend her novel as another way to understand the situation to which Hammarskjold tried to bring peace.)

Friends found a manuscript and an undated letter in Hammarskjold’s apartment after his death. The letter addressed the Swedish Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs and described Hammarskjold’s private diary. Hammarskjold collected different portions of his diary in the manuscript to become “the only true ‘profile’ that can be drawn.” He concluded the letter:

If you find them worth publishing, you have my permission to do so—as a sort of white book concerning my negotiations with myself—and with God. (Markings, p. v)

That manuscript became the book titled Markings.

The manuscript begins with this quotation from Meister Eckhart: “Only the hand that erases can write the true thing.” The published journal ranges from 1925 until 1961. The entries are not divided evenly among these years. Hammarskjold offers only a few entries from 1925–1930 and then jumps to 1941–1942 followed by 1945–1949. After these groupings, Hammarskjold offers single-year clusters of reflection. Did he follow the wisdom of Meister Eckhart and erase material? Absolutely, and in the material that remains we begin to glimpse truth.

In his Foreword to Markings, the poet W. H. Auden described Hammarskjold’s reflections as an effort “to unite in one life the via activa and the via contemplativa” (Markings, p. xx). We see Hammarskjold the diplomat in the most public platform, visible and known across the globe. His actions ranged from the ordinary routine of building the then-novel global enterprise called the United Nations to negotiating the 1955 release of Korean War prisoners in China to the 1957 intervention in the Suez Crisis between Egypt and Israel, Britain, and France. During the Cold War period between the United States and the Soviet Union, both nations criticized Hammarskjold for seeming to prefer the other nation. He worked for peace. While he used his gifts and abilities for the cause of peace, he practiced a quiet diplomacy and did not seek celebrity status. From Markings we get a sense that his quiet diplomacy grew from his quiet practice of prayer and contemplation.

In a radio program called This I Believe, Hammarskjold offered this autobiographical assessment:

From generations of soldiers and government officials on my father’s side I inherited a belief that no life was more satisfactory than one of selfless service to your country—or humanity. … From scholars and clergymen on my mother’s side I inherited a belief that, in the very radical sense of the Gospels, all … were equals as children of God, and should be met and treated by us as our masters in God. (This I Believe, 1953)

Hammarskjold’s life seems marked by a purpose that went beyond the day-to-day experience most of us have. His vocational calling remains a rare model of heroism.

The Mystical Inner Life

From the visible external markers of Hammarskjold’s life, we begin to see the inner convictions that shaped his diplomatic efforts. That leads to the second question of biographical inquiry: Who or what beyond family influenced Hammarskjold’s spirituality? Based on his writings and conversations, spiritual direction came from the writings of some medieval spiritual guides. In addition to Meister Eckhart, Hammarskjold grew familiar with Julian of Norwich, “The Cloud of Unknowing,” and St. John of the Cross. All practiced and taught the importance of contemplation. Perhaps the most well known of the contemplative moments came in the vision of Julian of Norwich, who lived from 1342 to 1416. As with Hammarskjold and other mystics, we know little about Julian. She described herself as ignorant, but she could write—quite an accomplishment for a woman of that time in England! Julian received a vision of a hazelnut, and in that vision she realized three things: 1) God made it, 2) God loves it, and 3) God keeps and preserves it. After another contemplative experience, Julian wrote, “but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” Her statement seems harmless and somewhat ordinary until we realize that Bubonic Plague devastated the population of England and much of the world in the fourteenth century. Fear of the disease gripped many people. Those who heard or read Julian’s message received good news.

The mystics who influenced Hammarskjold taught a contemplative means of prayer. Meister Eckhart (1260–1327) wrote that the best way to enter spiritual life is by keeping silent and letting God work and speak. John of the Cross and other mystics taught that our best prayers use no words, but are responses to God’s invitation to be still and to know God’s love. The mystic way invites us to journey spiritually not with our intellects, but our hearts.

The Certain Past

I repeat the two lines of Hammarskjold’s prayer often in this chapter and in life.

For all that has been—Thanks!

To all that shall be—Yes!

These two simple lines evoke a sense of wonder and gratitude, and they serve to remind me of tests and temptations endured and yet to come. Hammarskjold’s prayer reminds me of the good that comes in even the worst of times as we and others respond to the mysteries of disease and suffering.

Some moments do not generate gratitude. Some portions of life seem devoid of thanksgiving, and yet we may discover gratitude when we look back at these harsh times. Human beings remain free to choose. We choose evil or good. We act, knowing that we cannot foresee the consequences of our actions. Some actions, done with good intentions, end with negative results. Other actions, which seem harmful, lead to positive results. God does not pull strings and set us on an unchangeable path in which all of our daily actions and consequences are predetermined. God invites us to choose good rather than evil. I believe that God rejoices when we choose to live with good intent and that God grieves our poor choices. No matter the reaction of God, we remain free to choose. God does not program us to act or to react or to respond in ways decided long before the present moment. In every situation, we freely choose our course of action. Some choices are straightforward while other choices need consideration of multiple factors. Sometimes we choose well and other times unwisely. Sometimes our choice becomes a reaction because of our emotional state. (I think of the frazzled and fatigued parent who reacts angrily to the exuberance and enthusiasm of a preschool child.) Sometimes we choose to stop and to look more rationally at the choices before us. No matter how we decide to act, the choice remains ours. Think about this freedom to choose as a gift. I believe that this gift of freedom also involves love and trust on God’s part. The love comes out of that longed-for relationship that God wants with all people. God’s trust grows from the hope that we will choose wisely. For this gift of free choice I am thankful.

Think about Hammarskjold’s prayer for all that has been and all that will be. What events do you identify as high points? How did you think about God’s presence in those moments? Thanking God for those high points is a wonderful exercise in remembrance. We remember a variety of moments that range from a special evening to a particular celebration. These celebrations may have religious connections or they may relate to a school event or a friendship. Enjoy a time of remembering these high moments in life.

One ordinary day in the month of June when I lived in Nashville, I planned to go to the office and there prepare for a convention of booksellers. After a time of devotional reading and prayer, I went for my morning walk-run. I always began my morning run by walking. I’m not much of a runner. I don’t simply jump up and run. I usually walk five or six blocks before I feel ready to run. Even after warming up, I grunt and groan and stumble through each run and my body never stops protesting. I left the house that morning, walked up and over and down a railroad overpass, and then started a long walk on a straight and level street in a residential area. A few birds whistled. A fence (thankfully) contained a large mixed-breed dog that always showed lots of interest as I went by. A cat balanced on a fence in search of prey. The wind rustled shrubs and trees. As I breathed, I expressed gratitude for this beautiful morning of ordinary awe. I felt gratitude for the morning beauty, the relatively cool temperature, and the sense of normalcy in the neighborhood. Gratitude grew from being able to walk and then to run.

Then I noticed four young men walking in the middle of the street toward me. They seemed to spread farther apart as they approached me and covered the width of the roadway. I thought that I would walk past them. I still was not ready to run. (A little background: During years of living and walking in one of the urban centers of Nashville, I encountered a number of street people and dealt kindly with them. Once a man asked for money for food. “I don’t have any money, but I’ll be glad to take you to my church—it’s a block away—where I can get you some food.” “No, but I thank you. You’ve treated me like a human being. You didn’t ignore me.”)

We continued to move closer to one another. ...