Murphy’s law and molebens
Logismoi
How to think about personal intercessory prayer.
We all know about “Murphy’s Law” – “If anything can go wrong, it will”. It has many corollaries, and is sometimes funny in context. But it is not funny when applied to real life – and by this I mean our inner life, in which we gain our salvation.
There is an “occupational hazard” in the pastoral life, which, I believe afflicts all but the truly humble and perfected. It consists of “Murphy’s law type of thinking – “logismoi” – negative thoughts.
I have these thoughts, and they are like mosquitoes – very hard to get rid of – and the best way to deal with them is to ignore them and just keep doing the right thing.
My parish needs the weekly Moleben [1] (and the weekday liturgy). During these, all parish members, and a good deal of others (who visit sometimes/often/hardly at all/are friendly to our community/have asked for prayer) are commemorated by name, three times. I have recently become aware that people I have been praying for with intensity for the people on my daily dyptichs for quite some time have had marvelous things happen in their lives. I would never say what, because I keep so many secrets that I may not even tell you if it is raining outside if you asked me – and it is not like angels have started singing in heaven, but I have seen real things happen that have comforted me.
How to think about personal intercessory prayer.
I have a “code” when I think about my intercessory prayer for others.
1. I MUST do it, because I am a Christian, and the defining characteristic of a Christian is love. Those who love think of those they love, and try to help them. Prayer should be the first, the middle and the last thing we do for those we love, and if it is mixed with other things because of contact with them, so much the better, but we should think ourselves totally deficient in loving others if we do not pray for them. I do not think anyone should consider themselves a Christian if they do not regularly pray for others.
2. I have dyptichs [2] which I keep on the computer, and print off using “Clickbook [3]”: software in 4 pages to a piece of standard printer paper, so I can cut it up and have it in my pocket at all times. The list includes all parishioners, “sort of” parishioners, friends of the parish, etc. It also includes our public prayer list, which is at: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dzgvjb6_16f2pcdrhn. The goal is to pray for each of these people by name at least once a day. Since it is with me, I can pray in the car, or when at work (or in a train, or in a plane , or in a bus, or here or there, or anywhere!) this list is also used in the Monday Moleben, and the Thursday morning liturgy. With a list, I have a concrete thing to help me remember people. I recommend that everyone would make one.
2. I believe in “KISS”, that is I keep it real simple. I just pray that the Lord would have mercy on those I love and care for. I use the Jesus prayer, since it is so powerful – “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on _____” [4]. It does not matter if they are sick, going through a divorce, Orthodox, or not Orthodox, it does not matter about anything in a person’s life – we all need God’s help, and nobody knows with exactitude what we need. In praying only for mercy (the Orthodox Christian understanding of it, by the way), the prayer is short, focused, intense (well, to tell the truth, it can be intense, but sometimes it wavers) and non judgmental.
3. Just as I do not know what people really need, except in general terms, I cannot know if “my” prayer was answered. I also do not care. If I thought my prayers were extremely “effective”, I would get proud. I just pray, and rejoice if something happens to the good in a person’s life.
4. Even though I resolutely do not “take any credit” for anything I pray about, I am open to the possibility that God has heard my prayer, and especially my prayer in behalf of my people before the altar as a priest of God. Therefore, I am encouraged to pray more.
Back to the logismoi – negative thoughts. Here is an example. The Moleben is not attended by a lot of people. I sometimes pray alone. I have it after a long 14 hour day of work and travel, and sometimes I have a bit of a war negative thoughts when I am going to this service, tired and maybe a little crabby. I have found that I am never sorry I have served the Moleben, and believe with all my heart that the regular serving of it is crucial to our parish’s inner life.
There is one part to “Murphy’s Law” that does apply to Molebens and weekly prayer services. If I am late, people are waiting. If I am early, nobody is there, and sometimes I serve alone.
This past Monday, I forgot about the service three times, and almost did not go, but God reminded me. I was offered a chance to go to feed the horses with my son Tim, and I will always do this if I can. I said I would be there at 8 pm after work, totally forgetting about my obligation to serve at the church. Later in the day, Tim cancelled, since someone else in his family had already fed them. I was asked to pick up my son Dan at about 7:30 PM from a practice for a play he was in, because my wife was delayed at work. I was ready to do this, and texted him, but he replied that one of my daughters would do it. I was blissfully unaware that these two obstacles to serving the Moleben had been removed, and when I got in my truck to drive home after a long day at work, I somehow forgot completely about the Moleben (it was formerly on Tuesday evening, but my work schedule changed), and I only remembered after ten minutes on the highway. The negative thoughts set in for a short while, but they are just mosquitoes – swat them away and go do what I gotta do.
I arrived at church (a little bit late, and despite Mr. Murphy, nobody was waiting) and served alone, and there was a marvelous peacefulness and intensity to the prayer. I also got to say the list of names “mentally” since nobody was there to hear me. I prefer to pray “in my head” most of the time, since I am “this close” to being autistic when it comes to sound. I thought about “Murphy’s law” before I served and how I almost forgot to even come to the church, and in this case, nobody would have cared. I decided that “Murphy’s Law” doe not apply in any way to Molebens or any prayer or anything in our Christian life, and decided to write a little something about it (which due to Mr. Murphy, I was unable to finish until this glorious and rare (in Texas) snowed in Wednesday)
Priest Seraphim Holland 2011. St Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church, McKinney, Texas
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[1] “Moleben” means “Prayer service” and is from the Russian word “molitva” – prayer. It is a short, multi-purpose service which is like a severely shortened matins service, with intercessory prayers inserted. We serve it once a week, with an Akathist, almost always to the Theotokos, inserted.
[2] “Dyptichs” means “list”. All priests have personal dyptichs, and all Christians should have them, and USE them. The word also has a serious theological implication. The head bishops of the local Orthodox churches in the world (such as the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Kyrill, etc) have an official dyptichs which names the heads of all the local Orthodox churches. If a bishop is not on it, there is something seriously amiss in the canonical relationship of the two churches, or the other church is not even Orthodox. For example, the Pope of Rome is not on any Orthodox Church’s official dyptichs.
[3] “Clickbook” ( www.clickbook.com/) is not expensive, and it is awesome. I have no relationship with the company, except that I have used their product to print zillions of booklets, cards and other stuff, especially for the church, for many years.
[4] This is an important prayer, and should be used in our daily life. I have written about it before:
Give the first fruits of your day to the Lord. The “Four Bows”
( http://orthodox.net/redeemingthetime/2010/09/07/give-the-first-fruits-of-your-day-to-the-lord-the-four-bows-audiotext/)
An Eclectic Commentary on the Book of Job. Praying for our children with the Jesus prayer. ( http://orthodox.net/redeemingthetime/2009/05/19/commentary-book-of-job/)
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