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When my wife and I adopted our daughter Mattéa as an infant, we knew that we wanted to build something into our lives together in the way of prayer or ritual. Nothing too formal or fancy, but something that regularly reminded us that we belonged to something larger than our own little selves. We settled on singing a table grace at dinner:

Thank you for this food, this food,
This glorious, glorious food
And the animals, and the vegetables,
And the minerals that made it possible.

This works for us. It covers the basics. We need to say thank you for what we are given—the animals, the vegetables and the minerals which are constantly in interaction with us, and on which our lives depend. Just who or what we are giving thanks to doesn’t matter so much. That bit can remain open. Perhaps it’s the Source of Life, or the Evolutionary Process, or the Interdependent Web. Maybe how each of us pictures it, or doesn’t picture it, changes over time. Frankly, we don’t talk about it much—we just sing, and then eat. Sometimes we toss in a thank you for the cooks, although technically the cook is covered under the “animals” clause.

One day, when she was perhaps seven or eight, we got to the end of the song and Mattéa threw her hands up in the air and hollered “Boom!” Kelsey and I were, needless to say, perplexed. “Boom?” we asked, “Why boom?” “It’s the fireworks,” declared Mattéa, in a matter-of-fact tone.

It’s the fireworks. That’s what was missing from our brief moment of family prayer. The fireworks. The wonder and excitement and glory. Of course the marvelous fact of animals and vegetables and minerals, of life in general, deserves a nightly fireworks display—a grand celebration of the utter fabulousness of it all.

Prayer can be giving thanks in moments of quiet contemplation. But prayer can also be ecstatic, energetic, exuberant. Some of our human family’s most ancient forms of prayer involve drumming and dancing, bodies moving together, voices chanting, feet pounding or hips shaking in a glory of sound and movement. That “fireworks” version of prayer is every bit as real and valid as a monk praying silently in his solitary cell.

What does prayer look like for you? Do you have a way of addressing something that is larger than yourself, tuning into whatever is biggest and most holy? Some people pray as introverts: writing in a journal, sitting in meditation, reading poetry, walking in nature, finding God in the silence, or listening for the “still, small voice.” Some people pray as extraverts: singing, chanting, dancing, drumming, sharing joys and sorrows and lifting up the community in prayer. Some people pray to find their center, to listen for the voice inside. Some people pray by to be in communion with God, or Jesus, or the goddess, to be in the beloved presence of the Divine.

And, of course, lots of people don’t pray at all. Nor do they have to. But what if you wanted to pray, but didn’t know how to go about it? With all these ways of praying—quiet and loud, introvert and extravert, table grace and fireworks—how might a person get started?

Here’s what I think. Start with what you love. Maybe it’s gazing at stars or snuggling your cat or running for miles. Begin with a thing you love, and then add to it the intention to open your heart. So as you lie there with your cat on your chest or the stars shining down from the unimaginable distances, just focus on opening your heart to where you are and what you are doing.

And maybe once you are there, doing what you love with an open heart, you will want to invite someone else in—not literally, although that would be fine, too. But while you’re there, open heart and all, you could imagine the presence of those you love, or those you know who could use some extra support and compassion, and you could imagine them wrapped in that open-hearted beauty of the stars or the purring.

Maybe in that open-hearted space you’d like to reflect on a few things that you’re grateful for. Maybe you could hold yourself in that open-hearted space while you thought about things you were sorry for, and want to mend or do better next time. Maybe, while there in that soft heart-space you would want to ask for help, or forgiveness, or courage.

Don’t worry about who or what you might be asking to help or forgive you. Really, I don’t think that’s the part that matters. But if you want an image rooted more in science than religious tradition, think of this. Scientists recently proved the existence of the Higgs boson, what some people call “the God particle.” I’m not sure why exactly they call it the God particle, but my understanding is like this. Space isn’t empty. Even what looks like a complete vacuum is full of the Higgs field, which is only in evidence because things, well, are. Scientists know it’s there because without it, nothing would have mass, and there would be no atoms, let alone all the animals, vegetables and minerals of our world. Emptiness isn’t empty. There is always something which holds and catches the tiniest bits of the universe, allowing things to bind together, to connect.

Pray, if you will, to the Higgs field that holds all of everything, in which we are all linked. Surely it deserves to set off a small “Boom!” of fireworks in your heart every now and then.

I wrote this prayer sitting in a military chapel in Afghanistan. The prayer was inspired by my encounter with a service-member I met.  She was on her way home after a difficult tour as the lead officer on a joint theater trauma team. Among the experiences she shared with me was the memory of five Afghan children who were burned and blinded by an improvised explosive device.  After I wrote this prayer I sent it to her. My hope is that these words may help her and others progress along the journey home.

Oh Gracious God,
Spirit of Life,
Source of Love
What has become of me — I am broken!

Deliver me from the dread of memory,
hatred, cruelty, and revenge,
meaningless loss,
and betrayal of trust.

Lift me from distressing dreams,
regrets, doubts, speculations,
the violence that fills my eyes and scars my soul,
and questions that have no answer.

Grant me courage
to feel my pain and grieve my loss,
and serenity to accept that the past is done;
I will never return to my old self.

Still, let gladness, faith, and hope return to me,
and let me remember the love for me that endures
even when I cannot love myself,
and even when I cannot love you.

Help me to lay my burdens
into your compassionate and forgiving hands,
and open my heart to see goodness and feel joy,
wherever it is to be found.

Guide me from isolation to beloved community,
where my anguish can be heard and felt,
where trust and wholeness can be restored,
where I may carry this new identity — this sacred wound — with honor.

Strengthen me in the ways of the Warrior,
the ways of justice, kindness and humility,
so that, knowing death, I may more fully live,
with gratitude for each moment, and reverence for life.

Amen

Disclaimer: All entries to CLF/Quest Military Ministries page reflect the personal views of the contributor. The views expressed here are in no way to be construed as an individual or individuals speaking in their official capacities for the agencies, departments, or service branches they serve in. This is not an official publication of the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force, any government agency, or any other organization.

Last night I had dinner at the Goetz Dining Facility (DFAC) at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Walton, which is a short helicopter flight from Kandahar, Afghanistan. Before the meal, I raised a “near beer” (non alcoholic) with a chaplain colleague to toast Dale Allen Goetz, the Army chaplain after whom the DFAC is named. Chaplain Goetz died in Afghanistan on August 30, 2010, not far from FOB Walton, and is the only military chaplain from the United States killed in action since 1970, when Phillip Arthur Nichols was killed in Vietnam.

I remember when I got the news that Chaplain Goetz had been killed. I was in the passenger seat of our family mini-van, my wife was driving, and our five kids were in the back. We were on our way back from a vacation in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. I was a few months short of accessioning as an Army chaplain, and the whole family was beginning to prepare for my first deployment to Afghanistan, which at that time seemed likely to happen sometime before spring. The notification came to my Blackberry from the Department of Defense List serve: “Captain Dale A. Goetz was killed when his vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb.” The notice said nothing about Captain Goetz being Chaplain Goetz, but a quick search of his name on Google revealed a more complete story.

When I learned Dale Goetz was a chaplain my gut tightened and I wanted to vomit. My first thought concerned my own mortality: I had not until that moment acknowledged the real risk I would face going to Afghanistan as a chaplain. The next thought was about the unit served by Chaplain Goetz — the soldiers of the 1-66 Armored Battalion of the Fourth Infantry Division. When a soldier dies, the unit turns to their chaplain for comfort, hope and guidance. Their chaplain performs the memorial ceremony for the unit, and provides grief counseling to individuals.  In the horror of war the chaplain is a reminder to many of a loving and compassionate God who is present even amidst terrible suffering. But what does it mean when the chaplain gets killed? How do soldiers cope with the existential angst that must arise from such a tragedy — the very angst, which in the moment I heard the news, was making me nauseous.

When the chaplain gets killed some will face one of life’s most perennial questions: why do bad things happen to good people? When the chaplain gets killed some will question the invincibility of “the armor of God” (Ephesians 6: 10-18) which fails to protect God’s very own representative. When the chaplain gets killed some will face the dreadful realization that we are all vulnerable and nobody is really safe. When the chaplain gets killed — the chaplain who is a non combatant and carries no weapon — some will ask where is justice? Where is fairness? When the chaplain gets killed some will examine previously held assumptions: “God is on our side,” “God will protect us,” “God will not let anything bad happen to us,” and “In God we trust,” — and perhaps reject long held beliefs.

Yes, when the chaplain gets killed many will suffer moral injury — defined by Jonathan Shay as “a betrayal of what is right.” And sometimes a moral injury can be the most debilitating wound of war — the wound that is most difficult to heal. To heal from moral injury we need to give meaning to tragedy which might otherwise be inherently meaningless. I have made the tragic killing of Chaplain Goetz meaningful to me by reflecting on his death, examining some of my assumptions, and correcting false views.  I am glad for the simple memorial of the Goetz DFAC at FOB Walton, which reminds me of his death, and the sacrifice made by his wife, Christy, and their three sons.  I thank and honor Dale Allen Goetz for helping me, in his death, move beyond self deception towards a more right view of warfare and a greater reverence for life.

Disclaimer: All entries to CLF/Quest Military Ministries page reflect the personal views of the contributor. The views expressed here are in no way to be construed as an individual or individuals speaking in their official capacities for the agencies, departments, or service branches they serve in. This is not an official publication of the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force, any government agency, or any other organization.

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As a religious heritage bonded not by creed, confession or common prayer, but by covenant, Unitarian Universalists vow to stay at the table long enough to understand one another and mold a viable community.

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