Many ways to pray
However long prayer has been part of our lives, it’s good to take the long view from time to time. Do our regular ways of praying give us life and nourish our faith? Reflection is always healthy, creating a space into which God’s Spirit can blow afresh.

This new-look Prayer Diary is the result of such reflection and the year ahead in which our diocese will focus on letting Christ transform us to be more prayerful, will offer us myriad opportunities for more reflection, more Spirit-given newness.
There are many ways in which to pray and the Mission Hub offers a range of resources: www.DofN.org/prayer_resource
The visual arts, for example, can stir our souls profoundly. The Flower Seller (1942) [left] by Diego Rivera not only leads us into prayer but also teaches us about prayer.
A Mexican girl with neatly braided hair kneels before an enormous bunch of Calla lilies. She leans into the flowers, extending a tender embrace around them. Her head is slightly bowed. There is a deep stillness about her. She is utterly attentive. In short, her body is set in an attitude of absorbed prayer. Her unshod feet underline this: she is on holy ground and we, witnessing this moment, know ourselves to be on holy ground too. We cannot help being drawn in, mesmerised by the quality of the girl’s attentiveness. As Bishop Simon Phipps once said, “Prayer is absolute attention to what is the case”.
There’s something else about the child. In the vulnerability of her naked feet and in her widely extended arms, we glimpse something cross-like, Christ-like. Through her praying, she has, then, allowed the life of Jesus to come alive in her and she shows us how, as we pray,
we can mirror his wide-armed, self-giving embrace of the whole world.
So, what about those flowers? Well, they fill the whole painting, bigger than the girl herself, their scale overwhelming. When we settle down to pray for those around us or for the world at large, the sheer scale of need can overwhelm. This Prayer Diary helps by taking one ‘lily’ at a time: one benefice a day with its parishes and people and schools; one facet of life in our own diocese (the care of those living with dementia for example); one diocese far beyond our region but joined to us though Christ.
Our little flower-seller teaches us about stillness and attentiveness in prayer and inspires us to let the transforming presence of Jesus flow through us as we pray. But look how the canvas glows! The girl has deliberately let that presence flow from her into each of the flowers in her embrace – “holding them in The Light” as Quakers say. Each lily is lit from within, luminous as if with Christ’s risen presence.
We too, inspired by this painting, can flood those for whom we pray with the transforming light of Christ, and with St Paul, trustingly proclaim, “Everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2 Cor 5:17).
This article is from...
Articles in this issue...

Anna Chaplaincy
When her mother was in care, Gaye Hailstone knew that her spiritual needs were simply not being met.
More
Creation care: eco church
St Mary’s, Kelling Heath, achieved an eco church Bronze award.
More
Two’s Company
This is a new telephone befriending service to which five churches from the Great Yarmouth area signed up last spring.
More
Grief and Loss
I was on holy ground recently making space to talk about loss.
More
Committing to climate change
The UK is hosting the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow from 1 – 12 November.
More
Sports Factory
This is a team of qualified coaches who love sport and love Jesus.
More
Racial Injustice
We acknowledge racial injustice exists and abhor this injustice.
More
Zoom room prayer
Internet technology has brought us the blessing of gathering in prayer online, enabling people to respond in the fellowship of others, whatever our circumstances.
More
English +
This charity supports those new to Norwich – often refugees and asylum seekers – through English classes in city churches, but the ‘+’ in its title refers to everything else on offer to help people integrate well and form friendships.
More
King’s Lynn Winter Night Shelter
Established in 2017 by King’s Lynn Churches Together, the Winter Night Shelter has risen brilliantly to the challenges brought by Covid.
More