I have been struggling recently to come to an understanding of the relationship between prayer and a critical reflection on faith. How does one square the pre-critical language of much of prayer with the critical language often involved in serious theological reflection? It occurred to me that they are different aspects of a larger, complex movement of faith in a person's life. Shorthand for understanding these different aspects is to say that prayer is the first movement, a subjective, emotive response to events. It is pre-critical because it is more reactive than active, a response rather than an initiative. The language of prayer is the language of poetry, as it were, not necessarily "rational" in the conventional sense. Rather, it is symbolic, full of grand images that deal in traditional ways of addressing the Divine.
Part of this emotive, reactive way of being in relationship with something outside oneself is the recognition of the conditionedness and contingency of human thought, language, life, and faith. We are always limited in what we say, think and do. Prayer is the response that comes from the confrontation between this contingency and the unconditioned that we encounter in religious life and experience. Resorting to traditional language in prayer is not a resort to pre-critical understandings of who and/or what God is; rather it is a response that emanates from the very core of our subjectivity. Prayer, in this understanding, is a form of religious art that uses the mytho-poetic language of Scripture and tradition as a starting point for engaging with the Divine Other who encounters us in all our transience.
To call the language of prayer "mytho-poetic" is not to deny its fruitfulness or truthfulness. I would as soon discard the latter notion all together anyway. Poetry is a way of understanding that is non-critical, symbolic (not necessarily metaphorical, however), and laden with subjectivity. It invites the reader or listener in to the mind of an individual, to see with his or her eyes, to hear with his or her ears. It is, in this sense, not so much objective (another word I would just as soon do without) as it is intersubjective. In essence, it gives us permission to be creative, to use our imaginative faculties in understanding the world around us, as long as we do not assume that it is either the end of reflection or constitutive of anything "real" (for lack of a better term).
These are just some initial thoughts, obviously, and have yet to be fleshed out more fully. For now, though, I think I am far more comfortable with what it is we are doing when we pray than I was even a week ago.
