good war: social prayer & paradise

New moon. Sun fast (clock behind sun).

Last time, I gave a brief update about a religion conference where I presented a paper on social prayer. I didn't get to say much about the nature of social prayer, nor its connection to good war. So here is what lovers of god need to know about these spiritual technologies, plus an intro to paradise, aka heaven on earth.

Social prayer?

Many of us have heard of the social gospel. Some of us have heard about Catholic social teaching. We're all familiar with social media. What about social prayer? Why aren't we familiar with that? Three reasons:

1. It's uncomfortable.
2. It's dangerous.
3. It hasn't been studied in a systematic way.

Yet, social prayer was the secret non-weapon of the civil rights movement, “the sword that heals.” It’s exactly what we need today.

Social prayer is not new. But it is a new name for an old practice. As a poet, I trade in names: naming, un-naming, and renaming are all part of my job. I first named social prayer in 2017.

In the process of writing Love the religion of Martin Luther King: Pay, Pray, and Obey, a short book about King's religious legacy, I recognized that this name – social prayer – was missing from our vocabulary. And since the poet’s duty, as Stéphen Mallarmé said, is “to refresh the language of the tribe,” well, I was just doing my job.

(Note: The more common translation of Mallarmé's phrase is "to purify the language of the tribe,” yet I could not help but rename it a bit!)

Nine years later, I had the chance to elaborate on the name (aka concept) at the American Academy of Religion – Southeast Region annual conference.

Social prayer: engaging god, neighbor, and oppressor

So what is it, exactly? This is my working definition: Social prayer engages god, neighbor, and oppressor in a peaceful, intentional, and loving action to overcome a social injustice. To meet this definition, social prayer needs at least three features:

• cooperation: cooperating with the land of god’s love through loving action
  • no taking of life / no harm
  • no stealing / no destruction of property
• noncooperation: not cooperating with systems rooted in delusion, hatred, or greed
• healing: making whole

We tend to think of prayer as a kind of static or stationary activity. Social prayer invites us to think of it a different way. Think of prayer as a peace walk or a march, a sit-in or a bus boycott, a fast or a song.

When done well, social prayer removes the cause of injustice by embodying trust in a more just way of being. This is my theory about how these things work. For example, take the case of Rosa Parks. This was her social prayer, in three steps.

1. Blacks are not allowed in restricted seats when whites are present.
2. She refuses to move from her restricted seat when whites are present.
3. As a result, she removed the cause of injustice, both in her and around her: mental discrimination and physical segregation based on skin color.

Her social prayer worked, healing the injustice for an evening, and from there spreading quickly to a massive social prayer in the form of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, ultimately healing the injustice around the country (in theory, but not in practice for many more years). Parks was peaceful, intentional, and loving in cooperating with the land of god's love AND not cooperating with an unjust system. It was a beautiful social prayer, a work of art, really.

The re-discovery of social prayer was a major breakthrough in modern-day peacemaking. Naming is merely my attempt to do it justice by giving it its due, with its own name and rough science (ie, features, causes, effects, benefits).

BTW, I'm publishing this post on May 17, the same day as "Rededicate 250: National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise & Thanksgiving," a 9-hour "prayer festival" organized by The White House. Needless to say, now that we know what social prayer is, Rededicate may be its opposite.

Paradise?

Once again, I've run out of words (~750) before I can cover everything. Too much naming, unnaming, and renaming – as usual. For the sake of your time, suffice it to say that I was part of Loka PREP: Preparing Religious Environmental Plans in March, a group of people working on renewing paradise. That's my description of it, anyway. Details next time, god willing. In the meantime, love god. : )