Poetry got me thinking about prayer.

They’re alike: acts of obeisance to an infinite power, whose favor one entreats but never expects; acknowledgement of our insufficiency and opportunity for improvement; a belittling which makes us better. Both are hopeful acts which sweeten the petitioner and their world. Both take work.

Growing up, prayer was a duty, therefore my duty to deride. My nature resents being told I must without telling me why. I sensed why to brush my teeth but my conscience? To kneel bedside and repeat:

God as undertaker? Rubbish!

Rote is rot. It turns syllables into pebbles rattling in a cup. Words unmeant should be left unsaid. Did my parents say their prayers before turning in? I doubt it. Do as I say, then, not as I do.

The prayers in church did not sway me but the music did – and the music in the words. Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer, the Anglicans’ handbook, is among the most mellifluous poems in English, right up there with Shakespeare. Our hymns, too, lofted me beyond obligation to oblation. I heard God long before I met Him.

Prayer is wholesome, hygienic, “the sovereign cure for worry,” observed William James. It’s cheaper and more heartening than pills. Psychopharmaceuticals are lifesavers when needed, but also life-losers, for they advance a view that dismay is a chemical imbalance, not a valid response to experience. If I’m grim and glum, maybe it’s what I’m seeing that’s bothering me, not what I ate. A pill doesn’t allay human vileness, on daily display.

Prayer is a privilege, not a chore. How grand to feel small, meek, capable of betterment! An antidote to pride, vanity, cruelty, we rise from prayer refreshed, heartened by possibility. Poetry, too, if that’s your thing. Prose is work, producible with effort; a poem is a gift, magic, music, a stab of beauty that gives its recipient chills.

Whom one prays too hardly matters. Theology too often interferes with prayer, mandating do’s and don’ts. The force I pray to is infinite, attentive, and beneficent – that’s as much as I need to know. Is this force my fantasy? Very likely, and hurray for that, that I can imagine a me so much improved.

“Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays,” said Kierkegaard. That’s the point. It’s easy to get smug, later in life especially, rewriting one’s story to flatter its protagonist. Prayer nixes that, keeping the game of life interesting. “Old men ought to be explorers,” wrote T.S. Eliot, for whom prayer was central (and his poetry a form of prayer).

I would never preach a creed, but I would prayer, as good for what ails you. I would teach it, too, having learned the hard way. For me, it was among the gifts of retirement, the chance to be still, listening to silence instead of the demands of day. I’m guessing this trance state resembles yoga or other intentional tranquilities. God always whispers, I’m certain. He knows and He’s in charge: why should He shout?

There is no right way to pray except entirely and sincerely. “Words without thoughts,” grumbles Hamlet’s uncle and stepdad, “never to heaven go.” Quiet is my requirement, so I attempt it mostly when the world sleeps.

Regularity helps. With practice, one prays more efficiently. “Prayer should be the key of the day and the lock of the night,” wrote George Herbert, a beautiful prayerful poet.