Karl Brown - Phenomenology of Prayer - Reading 1

One of the things that really caught my attention in this reading of The Phenomenology of Prayer was the idea that you do not know how to pray but instead one is constantly in the state of learning how to pray properly. It is stated that one must “experience a profound decentering” and that “the result is that one is constantly learning how to pray” (The Phenomenology of Prayer, 4). By this distinction, one might think of getting better at prayer in terms of honing oneself to better shift focus from oneself to god. A significant portion of the prayers I have heard in my life are self-related or self-involved so this idea of altering the focus completely is a very foreign and fascinating concept to me. Apparently a lot of people I know might just be going about it all wrong.

I really liked that the author admitted there was a point in his life, where as a very devoted individual, he came to the utter realization that he did not know one thing about prayer and began to investigate and reevaluate how he prayed. This was reassuring to me as it showed that he would have perspective on those who would be reading his in-depth analysis on prayer; the author understands how even someone who is devoted might not have the background knowledge that he does and seems to write accordingly. I am an atheist myself who is nowhere near his level of knowledge regarding prayer and I believe that him writing differently knowing that one may not know anything about prayer probably helped me.

Another thing that came to my attention was when the author discussed kenosis, a voluntary decentering of oneself, in context of Mary’s prayer. In her prayer Mary states, “let it be with me according to your word” (Phenomeology, 22). It brings up the idea that it is not only the mental state that you have going into and during a prayer but your words themselves that lead to a truly decentered state. It had not occurred to me that in your prayer your verbalizations of your ideas should be reflecting the mental state you are going in with in such a direct manner. However, when the author describes it in context of Mary’s prayer it makes a lot of sense how that is so important.