Karl Brown - Phenomenology of Prayer - Reading 2

I really got into the idea that god can pray also. The Phenomenology of Prayer discusses this in context of Jewish religion by referencing how, “God is obliged to put on tefillin every morning, God prays in the same manner as man prays” (Phenomenology, 41). It was interesting to think of God preforming the same religious act as man, but for a different purpose. This relates back to earlier topics learned about how prayers can simply be praise, which is what God is doing in this context when he is praying. I wonder if other religions besides Judaism have concrete examples of God praying? I need to ask about that before the class is over.

Something the author went over that I seemed to find very obvious was that life, prayer, and passion intersected. He discusses true prayer, which has those 3 components. I feel that life will clearly be involved in prayer as one’s life will sometimes come up in prayer. An individual can call praise to things in their life, mention how their life has affected their spirituality, or even cry out for help about aspects of their life in prayer. But passion seems even more a part of prayer to me. I might go so far as to claim that passion ends up present in all prayers. One must care about the things they are telling the one they hold highest, and pour out their soul when praying. Am I making assumptions when I say that life, prayer, and passion clearly go together?

The concept of prayer not necessarily being addressed to anyone specific I found very interesting. The author gives an example of an artist painting not necessarily for a certain audience but simply out of passion for her work. That parallels well to someone simply pouring their emotions out in a general prayer but not worrying about who is on the other end. I like this idea a lot, and if I prayed I think I would fall into this category, but it does make me wonder if all people truly pray in this manner. I would assume that there are people who will make every prayer out with a specific divine figure in mind whom they have concretely defined, and I’m not sure how that fits into this idea.