On Easter, considering what prayer really means: Expressions of faith and belief in God and ourselves

It’s Easter, which means hallowed, sometimes sanctimonious talk of religion and prayer, a mixture that can obscure what prayer really is.

Making sure to tell others — often via social media — that one is praying has become like many things in our age: a stand-in for substance. The phrase “thoughts and prayers” is as meaningless as any when words are rarely wielded with precision, honesty, and command.

Self-referencing the act of prayer is often insincere, an attempt to garner attention. And when it’s not insincere, it’s still typically born of a desire to do the bare minimum and look good while doing it, which is something people now love.

This isn’t real love, of course. The conventional idea behind prayer is associated with the spiritual. There’s a higher being, who is spoken of as a person, and the being is believed to be aware of everything. They sit wherever they sit, an official on high, to consider prayer and perhaps answer some.

That’s a matter of importuning. The way we typically think about prayer is as a volume-based exercise. Hit a number of enough people, and the higher being will be moved to grant what’s essentially a wish.

It’s also not equitable; pray more for Sally, and she gets to be better off than Anne, who didn’t get as much voluminous support on the prayer front. That is the idea, if you think 6,000 people “praying” increases the chances than if you only had 5,000.

And that’s a poor idea.

True prayer — which is different — has as much value, potentially, for the non-believer as the believer.

When prayer is real and prayer is sincere, prayer is empathy. It’s going into someone else’s life with all of the energy and imagination that it requires. It’s an attempt to feel as that person does who is the object of the prayer being offered.

Prayer becomes about what may be done, but this can be a complicated concept.

Often, with that person for whom we’re praying, that’s nothing. We might not know them. There are numbers beyond the scope of however far one desires to reach out.

Paradoxically, prayer often isn’t about the person for whom we’re praying. We enter into their lives through this concerted effort, and we have cognizance of what they might be feeling, experiencing. We have a new experience ourselves as a result.

When this occurs, we experience the world differently. We may know someone going through a version of what the person whom we have prayed for is going through. We behave better towards them.

We may realize that this other person could be us. We didn’t have that awareness before. That knowledge then informs how we view our own lives.

The person we touch can be a person we will meet in a decade. It may be someone we never meet at all, but a person who is met by our example as it has been passed along through others.

Prayer isn’t about wishing and getting something for Bob, because such and such happened to Bob. It begins with Bob. And it is about Bob, but in the larger sense than that Bob is about Bob.

The benefits of prayer are likely to grow and show themselves in ways we never see or learn about.

That’s true faith. Faith often isn’t easy. Prayer often isn’t easy. It’s emotional and mental work.

Prayer isn’t a mantra. It’s not a catechism. It’s not saying fifteen of these and ten of those. Prayer isn’t about quotas, being holier-than-thou, nor supplication.

But there are many ways to pray. To partake of art and receive what it gives us is one. To take a walk of an hour with only one’s thoughts, is another. To sit and think, “I should ask how my friend’s kid is, she was sick over the weekend,” is a form of prayer.

Prayer is actuated words. That doesn’t mean actions instead of words; it means words that help us go forth to places we normally don’t. Through our own hearts and minds, we enter into someone else. We go to places where we may have to confront our own laziness, where we’ve gone wrong, our selfishness.

Places where we may have to admit we’ve failed and we’ve failed for a long time, but it’s never too late to begin moving in the opposite direction, with all of the humility, awareness, and self-awareness that requires.

That’s prayer. And the last thing it is is a wish. Remember that this Easter, whether you’re a religious person or not. Wishes are for fountains at malls. And they don’t work. The things that do require a lot more empathetic effort and good faith.

Fleming is a writer.