Learning to Pray with One Hand
As I write this, I am relearning the art of patience. My left hand is bandaged from carpal tunnel surgery, and typing with one hand is a slow, careful process. I can’t rush. Each word takes intention. What surprises me is that this physical limitation has become a spiritual invitation, a reminder that prayer, like healing, takes time. Restoration does not come in an instant. It unfolds in the quiet rhythm of dependence, humility, and hope.
The readings for this Sunday invite us into that same slow rhythm. The prophet Joel speaks to a people who have endured drought and devastation, promising that God will again send rain, restoring the land and their spirits. It’s a vision of communal renewal, not simply individual blessing. God’s promise is not that we will each have enough for ourselves, but that all creation will once again flourish together. When Joel calls the people to gather and sanctify themselves, it is as if he’s saying: come together, bring your wounds, bring your longings, bring your truth, because healing will come to us as a people.
That image speaks to our life in the Church. We are not healed in isolation but in community. We pray not only for our own needs but for the needs of the world, for the rain that nourishes the fields and for the Spirit that restores hearts. When one part of the body suffers, the whole body waits with it for wholeness. I feel that truth in my own recovery, in the simple frustration of not being able to do things easily, and in the gratitude I feel for those who have reached out in care.
In the Gospel, Jesus tells a story about two people praying in the temple. One prays with confidence, recounting his good deeds and setting himself apart from others. The other can hardly raise his eyes and simply asks for mercy. Jesus turns expectations upside down, saying it is the humble one who goes home closer to God. The story is not about shaming humility or rewarding guilt, it is about honesty. The tax collector’s prayer is truth-telling. It is the prayer that says, “Here I am, God. Nothing is hidden.” That kind of honesty opens the way for transformation.
In my slower pace these days, I’m reminded that prayer is not a transaction, something I say to get something from God. It is instead an act of participation in God’s ongoing work of restoration. When we pray, we align ourselves with the Spirit that is already moving, already healing, already pouring out grace. Sometimes that looks like lament, when we bring before God the realities of pain, injustice, and exhaustion. Sometimes it looks like quiet waiting, like soil waiting for rain. And sometimes it becomes a cry of solidarity, when we pray not only for our own healing but for the renewal of others, for neighbors, for creation, for the world that God so loves.
Prayer, in that sense, is not escape. It is courage. It is standing before God and saying the truth about ourselves and our world, trusting that God’s mercy is wide enough to hold it all. It is also a kind of protest, because when we pray for God’s kingdom to come, we are declaring that what is broken is not the end of the story. We are choosing to believe that restoration is possible, that new life is already stirring beneath the surface.
As I slowly type these words, I wonder if the real invitation of this week’s readings is to let prayer reshape how we see and live, and to let it make us slower, gentler, more honest, and more connected.
So I wonder: What might change if we prayed less for what we want and more for what God longs to bring through us? How might our own humility become a doorway for God’s healing to flow through the whole community?
Kevin+
