I'd like to think about two ways in which we might imaginatively create a new sense of God for ourselves. People often say to me, "Miss Armstrong, you are lucky enough to be able to spend your time studying all this theology. But what about us? We can't do that." And you don't need to do that. Religious people all over the world pray.

Now it's very astonishing that they do. Because when you come to think about it, prayer is fraught with all kinds of theological difficulties. How do you talk to a God who we also believe is utterly immanent to us, part of ourselves? And why do we tell God things? According to the conventional theology, he knows it all already. And isn't there something slightly repellent about the idea of a God who requires us all to behave like sycophants, marching into beautiful buildings like this one so we can chant his praises? Asking God for things is problematic as well. I find it very difficult to ask God for things in the way that I was taught as a child. Why should God give me a nice day for my picnic on Sunday? Do I think God is going to change the course of the weather and send the rain off to some other poor soul down the road?

Do I believe God is going to take away my illness when he turned an entirely deaf ear to the six million Jews who went into the gas chambers at Auschwitz?

More seriously, do I really believe that? If I do, then I have worse problems. Do I believe God is going to take away my illness when he turned an entirely deaf ear to the six million Jews who went into the gas chambers at Auschwitz? "This God," as one of my dear rabbi friends in London said, "he doesn't help us." As a result, many Jews find it impossible now to ask God for things in that way.

I actually don't pray anymore because I was so bad at it in the convent that the thought fills me with exhaustion. I found other spiritual paths, largely through study. But many still go on praying, and it's important for us to do so. And if you can do it, it's a very useful thing to do, because it teaches us to use language in an entirely different way.

We are constantly defending ourselves. At times it's very difficult for us to admit unreservedly that we're in the wrong. Instinctively, our reaction, when blamed for something, is to find an excuse or ward it off, to explain it away or say, "It wasn't me," or pass the buck to somebody else. We also find it very difficult to be wholly grateful or to acknowledge our need or dependency on other people, because that puts us in their power and makes us vulnerable to them. It's even difficult to praise others. There's always a sneaking, little meanness of the heart that is either envious or says, "She doesn't deserve it," or, "I know people who deserve better than that."

But when we pray and admit that we are entirely in the wrong once a week, when we thank God or express our need, we are bringing down those defensive barriers. We are using language in a different way. And what holds us back from religious experience is the fact that we are surrounded by that kind of caution.

Prayer can teach us how to open ourselves up, letting some of those barriers down, if only momentarily.

What prayer can do is teach us how to open ourselves up, letting some of those barriers down, if only momentarily. It shows us how it's done, and this prepares us for faith, for religious experience. In this way prayer can be thought of as an imaginative way of using language and of teaching us to think at a deeper level than the rational about openness, trust, and vulnerability.

Music and art can do that for us too. Why art works for us is that it gets deeper than the rational. A wonderful piece of music can hit us in the solar plexus, touch something buried deeply within us, and lift us momentarily beyond ourselves. Great poems and great paintings can do the same thing. For a moment, they pierce the barriers of our cautionary being and give us a sense of the transcendence we are constantly seeking. We human beings need transcendence; we need an experience that goes beyond the mundane. It's the way we are framed. When we stop finding transcendence or ecstasy in one place, we find it somewhere else.

Related Links

If We Don't Know When We're Praying, How Can We Know When Our Prayers Are Answered?
Many of us pray more than we realize -- at work, at home, driving in our car on a freeway. There are numerous areas in our lives in which we have small but surprisingly meaningful encounters with God. Excerpt.

How Prayer Can Harm
Larry Dossey talks about the power of prayer. The word conjures up light and positive associations for most people, but prayer can also be used to negative ends either consciously or unconsciously. Interview.

God at 2000
View the archived webcast of God at 2000, co-sponsored by GraceCom, featuring Karen Armstrong and other religious leaders on how they see God. Webcast.