Beyond Praise and Petition: Prayer as Shared Grapefruit Juice on the Back Porch

I spent this week at my dad’s house in Georgia. I did my usual. Cleaned the gutters. Did a couple of minor repairs. For the first time ever, Dad did not work with me. He wasn’t feeling well. He’s struggling with the aftermath of surgery and the profoundly disorienting pain of losing my mother six weeks ago.

Thursday evening, Dad came out on the back porch while I was finishing mowing. He lay on the swing watching me finish the last few passes across the lawn. After parking the tractor I joined him on the porch.

“Perfect evening,” I said.
“Yes. Earlier there were some of the prettiest clouds I’ve ever seen over that direction.” He pointed east.
“I saw them while I was mowing. They were magnificent.”
There was a long pause.
“I think, I’m going to get something to drink. Do you want anything?”
“No thanks. I had some juice just before I came out.”

In the kitchen, I filled the biggest glass I could find with ice and grapefruit juice, then rejoined Dad on the porch. It was a perfect summer evening—temperature about 80, the air thick with humidity, frog song and the noise of insects. Another huge mountain of cumulus cloud had drifted into view to the south. There were flashes of very distant lightning.

We talked intermittently about June bugs and lightning bugs, remarked on the stars that were just starting to sparkle. I said I really liked the frog song. He nodded and smiled. I wasn’t sure he could hear the frogs or even had understood my comment.

Our conversation didn’t go anywhere. We didn’t solve any problems. We didn’t make any decisions. Our occasional bits of conversation were mainly a way of acknowledging our shared pleasure in the magic of a Southern summer night. I sipped my juice. We watched more stars come out.



Before I had finished mowing it had gotten so dark I’d had to turn on the tractor headlights. I was proud of myself, demonstrating to Dad my capacity for work. But he wasn’t on the porch to spur on my work. He was on the porch waiting to share communion.

After a long while there on the porch with Dad, I had a new vision of our relationship. Nearly all my life I’ve been driven to earn Dad’s approval. I felt I never measured up. I wasn’t athletic enough, smart enough, focused enough. Working together has given me my strongest sense of connection. My best memories from childhood are working with Dad, fixing broken plumbing, working on his radio tower, building a barn. But that work was always colored by my drive to win his approval. I thought the accomplishment of the tasks was the most important thing.

Thursday evening changed that.

Once we had been on the roof of our house working on Dad’s ham radio antenna. Dad was trying to figure something out, and I was just sitting there. So I proposed that I go do something useful in the yard, thinking this would impress him. He demurred and said something about it being more enjoyable to work together. I didn’t get it. Not then. Not for forty years.

I think I got it Thursday night. Dad is not demonstrative, but he didn’t get married and have six kids because he needed extra hands to help with plumbing and radio antenna repairs. Or because he wanted help cleaning his gutters when it was no longer safe to climb ladders. He had a family because he delighted in their company. Thursday night we companied together. We fulfilled the grand design of Creation.

This is a picture of prayer. Beyond praising, petitioning and interceding, beyond our pleas for guidance, wisdom, more of the Holy Spirit and holiness, beyond our striving to be better and purer, to be closer, is God’s invitation to sweet communion.

“Behold I stand at the door and knock. If anyone will open the door, I will come in and we will go and sit on the back porch and share iced grapefruit juice and a warm summer evening together” (Revelation 3:20 paraphrased).

Predictable apostasy

Just finished reading a book titled Evangelical Disenchantment by David Hempton (Yale University Press, 2008). The chapters on Francis W. Newman, brother of Cardinal Newman, and Theodore Dwight Weld are worth the price of the book. (Of course, I didn't actually buy the book. I checked it out of the library.)

All of the people profiled in the book had a significant, compelling conversion experience in their teen years and engaged in evangelical ministry. Then left evangelicalism. In most cases, the "departure" was caused by the collision of ideals inspired by evangelical promise and individual and social reality presented by the evangelical community.

If you are trying to understand why creative, idealistic intellectuals have a hard time keeping themselves inside the box of traditional, conservative, devout religion, this book might provide some insight.

I plan to write a fuller, more analytic review but the book must go back to the library and I'm headed to Georgia for a week to visit my dad. So maybe in three weeks I can post the review.