For many years, as you know, I was a chaplain to an elementary school and one of my tasks was to teach young children about prayer. God knows, we all need help in learning how to pray. In order to make things as simple as possible for my students, I borrowed a clever trick I learned from a Reform rabbi (Marc Gellman) and a Christian writer (Annie Lamott), both of whom teach that prayer really comes down to four simple words: Wow! Thanks! Oops! Gimme!
“Wow!” is that part of prayer in which we express our wonder at the world and everything in it. Prayer is praise and celebration. Too often we just drift through our daily lives failing to notice the miracles right under our noses. The beauty of a sunrise; the extraordinary complexity of the bodies we inhabit; the agility of the minds we rely on each and every minute of the day; the vastness of this universe of billions and billions of galaxies. “Wow” is the only apt response.
“Thanks!” is that part of prayer that remembers that all of life is a gift. We did nothing to deserve this. Why was I born to loving parents of means while others live as orphans in poverty? Why do I have an abundance of food in my house while others go hungry? Why am I surrounded by caring friends when others live lives of quiet and lonely desperation? I don't know the answers to these questions, and I suspect you don't either. But I do know that the answer to them is not because we did something to deserve these gifts. Gratitude is the only apt response to the giftedness of life, and that is why prayer always includes “Thanks!”
“Oops!” is that part of prayer in which we admit our mistakes. We're not perfect. No one is. We all have faults. We all have dark corners in our lives, shadowy places we would just as soon not acknowledge. We needn't beat ourselves up about these flaws or our failures, but we are asked to be honest about them. Indeed, the surest way to be free of the burden of our mistakes is to name them, offer them up to God's mercy, and then to rejoice in the extraordinary fact that God will always forgive the contrite. If you're old-fashioned, you can call it “confession,” but “Oops” will do just fine.
“Gimme!” is that part of prayer in which we ask for things. It comes at the end of prayer for a reason. Only after saying our “wows” of wonder at everything God has created, only after giving thanks for all the gifts of this life to which we can claim no credit, and only after humbly owning up to the ways in which we have fallen short and made a mess of our lives, do we dare ask for help. But we needn't feel ashamed about asking. For part of the wonder of God is that, like a mother, God wants nothing more than to know our deepest desires and needs and He invites us to share them in prayer. And so, we ask. At first, as we start out in the practice of prayer, it is natural to ask for ourselves. But then something remarkable happens. As we mature in the life of prayer, and grow in our relationship with God, our asking takes on a new character. We find that we ask less and less for ourselves, and more for those around us. For this is the direction that prayer leads: it takes us out of ourselves and into the world. In true prayer, we lose our own self-absorbed identity and are taken up into the mysterious outpouring of love that God holds for all humanity and all creation.
Wow. Thanks. Oops. Gimme. Try it some time. You needn't worry about fancy language, sounding sanctimonious, or impressing anybody with your eloquence. Just be yourself. Tell God: Wow, I can't believe what you've created. Thanks for all I have. Oops, I'm sorry for the mess I've made of what you’ve given me. And please gimme help … give me and the world what we need to do your work in this troubled world, all for your love's sake. Amen.