Phil Togwell brings it back to basics

Phil Togwell

As he stood up and strode purposefully across the room to the 'prayer chair', Thomas began to pray, "Thank you Jesus. We pray that we have a good day today, and that you keep us safe." I nodded in agreement - a good start to a prayer, I thought.

"And if we go out today." he continued seriously, with his eyes wide-open and hands gripping the arms of the chair, "...and you help policemen to catch robbers." I wondered if I'd heard those last few words right. Thomas, however, barely pausing for breath, pressed into the most recognisably theological part of his prayer. "And when you died on the cross, you took on...you...we gave you life, if we did...if we were powerful like a Power-Ranger." Thomas was really on a roll by this stage, "and when you died on the cross...and when you, when we...and we went to Duggie Dug Dug's, and we saw your nails through your hands. Amen."

Thomas was four at the time, and he is one of my daughter, Poppy's, best friends. She (like Thomas) is a wonderfully confident, extrovert child, making the most of all opportunities to be (and remain) the centre of attention. Unlike Thomas, however, Poppy is profoundly deaf. It's a long story, for another time maybe, but Poppy's deafness has had profound effects on our family's lives...and on much of what we believe, not least of all about prayer.

When Thomas finished his 'Power Ranger' prayer, in the middle of the children's cell group we'd been hosting, Poppy got up to pray too. At the time, Poppy's prayers were largely unintelligible, except for an occasional name thrown in. She was in the very early stages of learning to speak, which meant that much of her communication was 'babbling', and much of her prayer was too. As I listened to the sounds coming from her mouth, I wondered...what does this mean? Is she actually saying anything? Is this communication? Does God even understand any of this?

But then I imagine Jesus standing in the room with us, with arms open wide and a big grin on his face. He brushes aside my culturally-rationalised questions just as he did his disciples' attempts to protect him from the crowds, and says, "Let the little children come to me... Let them do it their way. I like Power Rangers, by the way! And you should hear what's going on in Poppy's heart when she babbles like that - it's like poetry! I love it! If you want to understand how to really talk with me, then you better listen to these children." And I find myself humbled once again. (And I also wonder if my long-winded, meandering prayers sound like poetry too?)

Prayer, conversation with God, is beyond reason. Conversation with God defies logic, it confounds formulas and yet it is incredibly simple...we start by simply learning to talk, learning to express what's in our hearts, honestly, and then learning to listen, carefully. And we become changed as we do.