We had the second week back to our contemplative prayer service tonight. It's a really nice service, with very few people who come. Sigh. Oh well.
Each week, I lead an intercessory prayer that starts with ourselves and gradually moves out to the world. The second stop is "our loved ones and all families." And ever since I started doing this, because of single people who had shared their frequent sense of being invisible in churches, the next stop is something about "those who are lonely".
Which gets complicated. I do want people who aren't part of traditional families, that is, people with families of one, to feel comfortable in our church. But trying to pray for them is a little awkward.
I try to include lots of categories of loneliness. In fact, I usually say "for runaways and those who have been dis-owned or distance by their families, for those who are the last one left and those living out their lives in nursing homes, for those lost in the loneliness of dimensia. For all those living lives of solitude, whether by choice or circumstance..."
So right there, you've got a lot of people in dire situations, and then some whose lives are completely normal, they're just single (or divorced or widowed). And what about people who are married and lonely? You know they're out there.
I've even sometimes throw something in about people who are lonely, even when surrounded by other people. Sometimes I list the circumstances, death, divorce, moving...
Obviously, I can't cover every situation. But sometimes I worry if I'm making it worse by bringing it up. I've occasionally wanted to ask some of the people who come how that part hits them. But I never have. Maybe I should. On the other hand, the ones who come may have been thinking of it as applying to people other than themselves this whole time and may be offended if I suggest it might apply to them. Aaah. So delicate.
I mean, when I pray for families, some of what I mention does illustrate that family life isn't a bowl of cherries either. But somehow, those problems are more socially acceptable, I'm afraid. We're just not that good at talking about loneliness.
Any suggestions? Would you rather have it mentioned or left out? How specific should it be? There is always silence after each section, so you could take it in any direction you wanted, regardless of what I say. And it does help me think of some folks I might not otherwise.
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2 comments:
I've felt lonely surrounded by friends & family and after moving to a new place. In either case, I've always appreciated prayers that recognize how I was feeling. You're right that in a long list of woes, followed by silence, that people will likely fixate on what rings true to them at the time, so what might sound awkward to you probably works fine for people in a whole bunch of situations, who interpret the isolation and dislocation of the modern age in different ways.
I would be careful lumping single folks in in the "lonely" category, even when you say things like "alone by choice or circumstance." It's a big assumption that people who are alone are lonely at all.
I think I might put them in the family part of the prayer - - "those whose families are near and those whose families are far." I don't know. I like the idea of asking someone that you trust and who will be a good honest advisor, remembering that not all single people think or feel alike so even that one opinion isn't going to be a total reflection of all people.
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