Please note: I did not have time to fully correct the sermon text, so no doubt it’s full of errors. Sermon copyright (c) 2023 Dan Harper. As delivered to First Parish in Cohasset. As usual, the sermon as delivered contained substantial improvisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first reading is by the Unitarian Universalist choral conductor and composer Nick Page:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I composed a piece of music called ‘Healing Prayer,’ to be sung by combined choirs and congregations. I wrote it because a dear friend had been diagnosed with leukemia. He asked that his friends neither visit him nor call him, but rather that we simply pray for him. And people prayed\u2014even many who had never before given prayer a thought. My friend is now well on his way to recovery. I am far too scientific to say that our prayer healed him, but I know that those of us who prayed found a deeper connection to him, to each other, and to the world we live in — and I know that my friend also found that connection between self and all things. I also know that this connection was more than mere thoughts — it was tangible — as tangible as the medical treatment he also received.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second reading is a poem by Denis Levertov, from her book Oblique Prayers (1984). The text is online here.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Back in 1999, I was serving on the Pamphlet Commission of the Unitarian Universalist Association. These days, pamphlets are produced by staff at the Unitarian Universalist Association, but back then they relied on volunteers to create pamphlets. We were working on a pamphlet titled \u201cUnitarian Universalist Views of Prayer.\u201d This was part of a series of pamphlets where we asked a variety of Unitarian Universalists to give their views on topics such a God, the Bible, prayer, and so on. Each pamphlet showcased the wide range of opinions that can be found among Unitarian Universalists, and part of the point was to show that we Unitarian Universalists don\u2019t have a doctrine or dogma. We find our way to truth, not by having someone else tell us what is true, but through dialogue and through trying out ideas on other people and having our ideas modified and changed through our participation in a religious community. Ours is a pragmatic approach to religion, a pragmatism that is related to scientific method.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cathy Bowers<\/a> was the Commission member charged with coming up with material for this pamphlet. She solicited brief essays on prayer from a wide range of Unitarian Universalists, who held a wide range of viewpoints. Cathy solicited an essay from Anita Farber-Robertson, and Anita wrote about a devastating illness she had had in her thirties, saying, \u201cFor the first time in my life, I understood intercessory prayer\u2026. I asked my friend to pray for me. He did. I was astonished at its power.\u201d Intercessory prayer is the classic type of prayer where we ask God or some other divine power for help in our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a way of contrast, Cathy then got James Ishmael Ford,<\/a> who is both an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister and an ordained Zen Buddhist priest, to write about prayer from the Zen perspective. James wrote, \u201cI\u2019ve found through ordinary attention I can know enough to find authentic peace and joy.\u201d This type of prayer is sometimes know as centering prayer, or meditative prayer, and it need not have anything to do with God. in a similar vein, Cathy then asked Roger Cowan, an avowed humanist, about prayer, and he wrote: \u201cI am a humanist who prays, who begins each morning with devotional readings and a time of silence and prayer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nSermon: \u201cWhy I Don\u2019t Pray (But Maybe You Should)\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n