Grappling with Intimacy

Who taught you how to pray?  This is the question Matt Skinner, a Luther Seminary professor, reflected on in his Dear Working Preacher column focused on this Sunday's gospel lesson. 

He wrote, "It’s a very personal, intimate thing, one’s prayer life. Getting started at praying is less like learning how to drive a car, how to play the banjo, or even how to preach. For most, it is more like learning how to kiss. You learn some by watching others do it. You should be discerning about whom you will allow to teach you. You certainly make mistakes. And maybe you always worry deep in your head that you might be doing it wrong."

Learning how to pray really is a good deal like learning how to kiss.  In New England, we generally don't talk about kissing or praying, or at least not beyond the dutiful agreement to hold someone else in our prayers.  Instead we often stumble into these practices.  Growing up, there was never a parental conversation about learning how to kiss, nor was there a sermon on learning how to pray. (In fairness, to both my mother and my church, they probably tried, and I have succeeded in blocking it out). 

I remember being so concerned as a teenager with doing things the right way. I wanted to honor God in the way I lived out every aspect of my life. I often found myself guessing what it meant to be Christian and date, or what my prayer life ought to look like. I was waiting for someone in authority to publish some guidelines to live by.  My Catholic and evangelical friends all seemed to receive clearer instruction when it came to human sexuality, while prayer instruction seemed hit or miss (or at least this was the allusion I clung to). 

So you watch others, you learn. You sometimes learn from the wrong people and have to re-evaluate who you've allowed into your inner circle.  And, like anything we  don't culturally make space to talk about, we sometimes remain insecure, doubtful, maybe even a bit ashamed. Am I doing this right? Is there a better way to be doing this?  Am I good enough? And yes, I'm still talking about both kissing and praying.

So, what do kissing and praying having in common? Intimacy. It seems we are culturally uncomfortable talking about intimacy. And even if we wanted to, we don't really know where to begin. We struggle with intimacy outside the Church, and definitely inside the Church.  Which is odd, because God's love for us is probably the most strange, intimate, and wonderful thing we will ever encounter in our lives.  In an outrageous declaration of radical love, Jesus washed his disciples feet hours before he died.  Once a year we gather on Maundy Thursday to follow in Jesus' footsteps, and wash one another's feet. We lean into it even as we can barely stand the intimacy of that ceremony. 

Intimacy requires a certain amount of vulnerability and trust.  Some people are naturally more open, a bit freer in giving their trust and willingness to be vulnerable.  Some people have been hurt so badly that they build a fortress to protect themselves. They predetermine what information will be given out when they trust someone, carefully considering who they might be willing to be vulnerable with--very often no one. I remember once seeing a person with just such a fortress who was diagnosed with cancer.  The person could have kept it to themselves and their small inner circle, but instead, the cancer propelled them into being open and vulnerable, sharing their condition.  The response was overwhelming.  The person was given love and care by colleagues, church members, friends, and family. It showed the person what could happen when they chose to be vulnerable, sharing this intimate knowledge with a wider circle.  This person was held up by the strength and love of the people in their life. 

Why are we so reluctant to be vulnerable?  How do we learn to trust and be open?  How do we talk about intimate things? How might the Church start talking about intimacy?  How do we talk to our children and grandchildren about learning how to kiss and pray?  How do we talk about all these things, without embarrassment or shame?

As a mother, I am mindful of my tween-age and adolescent sons, and the need to constantly be in conversation, to make space to ask them questions and listen to the things they care about, to get comfortable talking about uncomfortable things.  To overcome my own insecurities or discomfort, so they know there is nothing that we can't talk about. Imagine if nothing was ever off limits. What freedom might that give those young men to know who they are as beloved children of God?

As a pastor, I hope that we in the Church can do the same. What hard thing do we simply not talk about that you need to talk about? What are you too embarrassed or ashamed of to share with your neighbor or pastor?  What would it look like to ask God for strength, to give you the words to ask those impossible questions?  To talk about the things we were taught implicitly not to talk about? 
I wonder what new thing God might do if we practice such vulnerability, openness, and intimacy in the Church?