The Pride of Man

Another reason my little nephew must learn to articulate his needs and desires, she pointed out, is that he needs to learn “please” and “thank you”, “yes” and “no”. This, of course, is another way of saying he needs to experience himself, and those around him, as persons.

As children we are all attracted to magic, both its mystery and power. When I asked a young woman at a farmer’s market in North Bay, Ontario, how they managed to keep everything so fresh she responded in a most delightful and childlike way. “O, I’m just an employee. I’m not allowed to know the farmer magic.”

This aspect of magic, and magical thinking, is an unmitigated delight to me. It’s the humble acceptance of the obvious fact – obvious to a child at least – that the universe is a place of infinite wonder filled with things we do not know, cannot know, don’t need to know, and perhaps don’t even want to know. But there is also the seductive power of magic. This aspect is more problematic, and should be viewed more sceptically.

We all want to exert power, to force our will upon the world. The discovery of this possibility is one of the primal experiences of infancy. Our demands (cries) produce desirable results, and then our smiles and gurgles do the same. We discover we can manipulate our hands, and the objects around us, including people. When we cannot manage a manipulation we can usually manage someone to manage it for us. One of the earliest games my children discovered was fetch. They would sit in the high chair and drop a spoon or cup or toy, and Mom, Dad, brother, sister would retrieve it. But if the retriever grew tired of the game and stopped retrieving the child would turn to angry shouts and cries in an attempt to get the job done.

A great stride in human development occurs, therefore, when a child first learns to ask politely. This move from demand to request is an acknowledgment that she or he is dealing with another person who also has needs and desires. Admittedly, this is just a new strategy of manipulation to begin with – “Say the magic word.” – so it’s very important that the polite request elicit a unyielding NO from time to time. As a child learns to take no for an answer a brand new notion begins to develop in her little mind and heart. She (or he) begins to entertain the strange possibility that those around her, and even the Universe in general, might be more than means by which her needs are met. And this gives rise to a companion notion that she doesn’t always have to get what she wants, and sometimes maybe doesn’t even want to get it. Sometimes what she wants isn’t good. Sometimes Mom, Dad, or the Universe may know better what is good.

Prayer of petition is a posture of humility toward God, the gods, the Universe. It is a request; never a demand. It’s always prepared to take no for an answer, because it acknowledges implicitly that it does not always know what is best, or even good. Sometimes it is said, “Be careful what you pray for; you might get it.”, but this is the great concern of magic, not prayer. We must always pray as little children, secure in the knowledge that the one who will not give a child a scorpion if he asks for an egg (Luke 11:12) will, likewise, not give a child a scorpion even if he should foolishly ask for one.

Something worth pondering:

Science is a powerful tool, but it is the child of alchemy, which is the child of magic. The power of Science is it’s amazing ability to manipulate the world, but this too is its Achilles heal. If something can be done, it must be done, it will be done. We laugh at the sorcerer’s apprentice who lacks the self discipline to behave, and the knowledge to really understand what he is doing, but is this just a matter of maturity and experience? What about the sorcerer, is there anything within the realm of science that can set limits on him? Is there anything too wonderful for us to know, or too dangerous for us to do?

Turn around, go back down, back the way you came.

Can’t you see that flash of fire ten times brighter than the day?

And, behold, a mighty city, broken in the dust again.

O God, the Pride of Man, broken in the dust again!

“The Pride of Man” written by Hamilton Camp

Surely this song is a call to prayer.

Tell Papa what you want.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Philippians 4:6

My two year old nephew was standing at the sink with a cup in his hand, pointing at the tap and whining, while my mother and I sat at the kitchen table trying to have a conversation. Every now and then Mom would turn to Greg and ask him if he wanted something, and he just kept whining and pointing. Eventually, becoming frustrated with the interruptions, I took up his cause. “Mom, how would it be if we just give him a drink of water? He obviously wants a drink.” But Mom declined the suggestion and eventually Greg toddled over to us and said, “Water Gramma?” Mom got up immediately, took his cup, suggested to him that he might prefer some juice or a drink of milk, got him a drink, gave him a hug, and sent him on his way. Then she sat back down and helped me understand what had just taken place. And, out of the subsequent conversation came an illustration of the development of prayer that I have used for many years.

As I said in my last post, I believe prayer begins where all social interaction begins, in the inarticulate expression of our needs and desires. A baby is hungry or uncomfortable in some way and cries out. This is a mere reflex, but it has a social context of which the baby is, presumably, unaware. When Mama hears these cries and responds it is the beginning of social interaction and a doorway to a lifetime of personal relationships. Of course, there are also coos of contentment and gurgles of satisfaction, but we begin our lives as needy creatures. The cries are clearly set, in decibels, pitch and frequency, to get attention.

My mom’s first point was that my little nephew, who, at the age of two, was in the process of developing language, needed to learn to articulate his needs and desires. And we, as responsible adults in his life, needed to encourage him to do that. We might be tempted to anticipate his needs because we dislike the whining – I certainly was – but Greg needed help to leave this baby stage behind. He needed to discover that crying, whining, grunting and pointing were becoming ineffective. And it was up to his grandma and uncle to make sure they actually were.

But why should he articulate his needs when they are perfectly clear to us?

Well, apart from the fact that they aren’t perfectly clear to us, they probably aren’t particularly clear to him. Once he did ask mom for water she suggested some other options (juice or milk) that he might actually prefer. That’s one of the great things about words. They suggest other words and, thus, facilitate reflection.

As a child gets into using words to express his or her desires he or she will discover degrees of subtlety that might be hard to imagine without words. There’s juice, milk, pop, and eventually coffee, tea, beer and the kind of wining that actually goes well with dining. And then there’s a whole world of drinking that has little to do with being thirsty. To go for coffee is not essentially about thirst. (I asked someone once if he’d like to get together for coffee sometime. He declined because he didn’t drink coffee. Obviously a victim of inferior parenting.)

I believe, on this level alone, it’s important for us to ask God for things in prayer. Not in spite of the fact that he knows us better than we know ourselves, but because of it. As we articulate our needs we discover many things we might not otherwise see:

• how many we have,
• how few really matter,
• how many we don’t have because they’ve already been met,
• how selfish we are,
• and how many of our deepest needs we hadn’t even noticed until we started praying about them.

How many of us would have ever noticed our need for forgiveness if we’d never learned “Forgive us our trespasses” in the Lord’s Prayer? How many would think to ask to be led away from temptation?

The psalmist writes:

Search me , O God, and know my heart;

test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting. Psalm 139:23-24

In conversation with God we discover ourselves, our own hearts. And we begin to discover that prayer changes us. In fact, I believe that’s mostly what it does.