Explainer
Creed
Psychology
4 min read

The selfish desire of hopeful prayer

While waiting for a bus, Henna Cundill contemplates how prayer transforms the uncomfortable into imaginative hope.
A woman leans against the glass of a bus shelter while waiting, she clasps a bag.

“Try praying” suggests the bus as it pulls up. Ironic, really, given how much of my life I’ve spent in this draughty shelter, earnestly praying that a late bus would just turn up. Well, here is a bus, but it is not the one I’m waiting for. However, its slogan has lodged in my mind. Perhaps I should pray anyway, just to pass the time? What would I pray for right now, beyond the bus I want? Are any of my other prayer requests something that God is likely to countenance? I’m all too well aware that there are some things on my personal wish-list that the Almighty is definitely not going to grant.  

In 2022 a Church of England survey found that nearly half the population (48 per cent) claims to pray, and the numbers are apparently even higher among the 18-24 age bracket. In the breakdown of the statistics, it can be seen that the poll respondents prayed for all the ‘right’ things – for peace, forgiveness, guidance, and for those in need. So far, so pious. Would any of us really admit to a pollster that we pray for the other, slightly more selfish things – a convenient parking space, good weather on a holiday? Such prayers are suitably benign, but probably also pointless. God, surely, has better things to do. We still pray them though. Well, I do anyway. Maybe you are better than me, but I’ll go ahead and admit to all those little, probably pointless prayers – prayers revealing that inwardly I’m quite selfish, and a bit of a narcissist, a girl who just wants an easy life and an on-time bus.  

Perhaps the uncomfortable truth here is that a lot of prayer is born out of a desire for ease and comfort. Prayers for peace, forgiveness, guidance, and even prayers for others in need can be no less a response to a sense of discomfort or discontent than the prayers to get me out of this draughty bus shelter. But such desires are entirely natural. After all, as humans we are programmed to maintain homeostasis. Within that, most functions can happen internally – so when the individual body is too hot, it sweats; when the body is too cold, it shivers (like me in this shelter right now). It’s all about control.  

But sometimes the discomforts are emotional, and we are dependent on external factors to maintain or regain our homeostatic sense of peace – factors that are out of our (or any person’s) control. To pray is to make a cognitive response to that realisation, to seek some input from a higher power. There is nothing I can do to make the bus come on time, and in the absence of peace, forgiveness, guidance, or when contemplating the multifarious sicknesses and struggles of my fellow human beings – well, I realise that maybe damn near everything is out of my control. God, can you do something about this? It’s making me uncomfortable.  

Oddly enough, even the most well-known of Christian prayers, the so-called “Lord’s Prayer” (Our Father, who art in Heaven… etc. etc.) makes no bones about acknowledging this. Part way through, like hungry children who loiter in the kitchen whilst mother is cooking dinner, unashamed the pray-ers cry out: “Give us this day our daily bread.” It is a daily moment of divinely sanctioned gimme, gimme, gimme. My selfish inner narcissist loves that bit.  

I’m not generally praying for bread; I have bread. But to me the bread is a metaphor for all my inner needs and appetites. I think one of the early Christian writers, Augustine of Hippo, grasped this uncomfortable truth also. Reflecting on the brutal honesty of the prayers which are found in the Bible’s Book of Psalms, he wrote: “Your desire is your prayer, your prayer is your desire.”  Augustine was not advocating that such desires should be uncritically indulged, but that pray-ers should be honest enough to verbalise their desires, to acknowledge them before God, and in that way allow sunshine to become the best disinfectant.   

There is, perhaps, no bleaker statement than the words, “I haven’t got a prayer.” Where there is prayer, there is imagination, and imagination is a sign of hope. 

How interesting that the Lord’s Prayer acknowledges this basic human need – this need to say, “God, life is uncomfortable, and I don’t like this feeling.” I wonder about the other 52 per cent of the poll respondents, the ones who said that they didn’t pray. What on earth do they do with their appetites, with their difficulties, or with their sense of malaise? Because I think Augustine was right: prayer is all about desire, and desire is about hope for satiety – be it physical, emotional, or cognitive. Prayer is anticipating that our desires can or might be met by someone or something, out there somewhere, and allowing ourselves to imagine how that might come to be. There is, perhaps, no bleaker statement than the words, “I haven’t got a prayer.” Where there is prayer, there is imagination, and imagination is a sign of hope. 

It takes a bit of courage, sometimes, to admit to what we imagine, what we secretly hope for. It might be a world of peace and prosperity for all, but it might also be for the demise of an enemy or for a successful and stress-free life. Psychologists Ann and Barry Ulanov observe that in this way, all prayer is confession, even the prayers where we are asking for stuff. By coming face-to-face with God, we also have to come face-to-face with ourselves, including our selfishness and narcissistic longing.  

So, have I got the courage to verbalise my personal wish-list? To take this idle moment and allow my imagination to present God with all my deepest, darkest desires? Well, it sounds like it might be good for me, whether God is listening or not. Prayer, it seems, is an opportunity for some gritty self-reflection and deep personal growth. So why not? Here goes:  

“Dear Heavenly Father… 

…Oh, never mind, my bus is here.  

Amen.” 

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Thoughts and prayers: why such words can really count

Cop-out phrase or the key to articulating something more powerful, Henna Cundill dissects the neurological power of a platitude.
A Coast Guard officer gives a press conference while looking grim-faced. Others look on.
A Coast Guard office gives the news of the loss of the Titan submersible crew.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with all those affected...”

We hear that repeated often enough, don’t we? Some public figure is quoted as saying this phrase in the body text (usually about paragraph five) beneath nearly every gut-wrenching news headline. “Thoughts and prayers” are the panacea, the platitude, the words to say when there is nothing that can be said.  

It's easy to deride and dismiss these words, and many do. There is an understandable frustration when public figures serve suffering people with vapidity instead of vim. But perhaps I can make a case for “thoughts and prayers” being more than just a political cop-out? To be sure, these words are not everything, but they are something.  

I love words, that’s why I try to write for living. (Try to, anyway.) I love languages too; I’m one of those annoying people who finds learning new languages pretty easy. Lots of people think they are rubbish at this, but they have missed the secret weapon: repetition. If you’ve the willingness to dig in and repeat vocab lists and word tables over and over again, and then over and over again, and then all over again. And then again. And then again, again… then learning a new language is easy. Repetition is the key, because repetition forges and reinforces new neural pathways in the brain.  

You see, that’s the exciting thing about learning a new language: you can actually feel the incredible plasticity of the human brain in action. It doesn’t have to be a new language, you can mess with the language you already know – I promise that if you look at a car and say the word “bicycle” to yourself 100 times, the next time you see a car, you will likely have to consciously will yourself not to call it a “bicycle”. Go ahead, try it. (Car) bicycle, (car) bicycle, (car) bicycle … and repeat.  

The human brain is constantly linking words and phrases to objects, emotions and perceptions, grouping things together by association. One study showed that participants were quicker to verbalise the word “priest” in response to a photo of a man in a dog collar when they had been shown a picture of the Pope immediately before. This is because the brain stores words in categories of related things, and this language storage system then has the power to shape what we perceive. Due to the association with the Pope, the participants perceived a “priest” and not a “vicar” or a “minister” or even just a “man.” 

Think again about the word ‘bicycle’ – in your mind’s eye do you now also see a car? See, I’ve played a trick on you! If you saw the car, then I’ve gifted you a new (and, sorry, totally useless) neural connection between the word bicycle and the object car. You’ll probably unlearn this one pretty quickly – neural pathways can fade as well as develop. But philosophers have long pondered this strange power of language to create our sense of reality – we develop our perception of what exists based on what we can communicate. Put more simply: people generally pay attention to the objects and perceptions that they have words for, and often ignore the things for which they have no words at all.  

Having something to say about suffering that gives us the ability to pay attention to it, to perceive and acknowledge it.

Of course, there are no words at all for that feeling one gets when reading about a school shooting, or a natural disaster, a mass murder or an accident. Horror is a screaming silence. “Our thoughts and prayers…” are typically the words to say that we have no words, that we are powerless to articulate what’s going on inside when we look upon the dust and ashes. But, if we take the philosophers seriously, and if we acknowledge the plasticity of the human brain, then putting these words around an event creates certain neural links and associations. It is having something to say about suffering that gives us the ability to pay attention to it, to perceive and acknowledge it, even when we would rather ignore and turn away.       

And if you or I actually do think, and if you or I actually do pray for all those affected – especially if we are willing to do so again and again, and then all over again, well then, we have not only created a neural pathway, but we have also reinforced it. We have gifted those suffering people a little place in our minds – perhaps even a permanent corner of existence. They are perceived, seen, and if you have ever been in a place of suffering, you’ll know how much it matters that someone, anyone, pays attention.

Far from helping us to avoid reality, having something to say gives us the means to engage.

Perhaps this is why the Bible repeatedly emphasises the importance of praying for one another, and for the world, and even for one’s enemies? It’s not only that prayer works on God, but that prayer works on us – developing our plastic brains and increasing our capacity to pay attention, to perceive the suffering of others and to allow horror to birth compassion. Far from helping us to avoid reality, having something to say gives us the means to engage.  

I am by no means arguing for platitudes instead of political power. Words are no substitute for tighter gun-control, better public safety, standards in public office and/or an open-hearted, open-walleted, boots-on-the-ground humanitarian response. Words are not a panacea, but neither are they powerless. Philosophers and prophets alike have long pondered the mystery that thoughts and prayers create realities – advances in neuroscience have only served to confirm the wisdom that was already in the room. To think and to pray is to create, to speak words that will bring life and breath out of dust and ashes.  

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