I’ve always admired and found surprising comfort in Thomas Merton’s striking assertion about Gethsemani, the abbey in rural Kentucky where he lived the last 27 years (to the day) of his life – calling it “the real capital of this country. This place is the cause and reason why the nation is holding together. These monks, hidden in the anonymity of their choir and white cowls, are doing for their land what no army, no congress, no president could ever do: they are winning for it the grace and the friendship of God.“

Remember my constant warnings about the idolatry of political ideology? Only God is God, and the Church makes space in the world for God when we pray. During the direst seasons, we take hopeful comfort, knowing “Someone’s prayin’, Lord.” I envy those churches whose names include “House of Prayer.” We pray in this house. We pray in our worship services. We pray before our meetings – although I always shiver a little when I recall a pastor friend observing this his church people often pasted a prayer on the beginning of their meetings which were always cantankerous or downright ugly… If we dare to pray before a meeting, we’d best try keeping the meeting prayerful and godly.

In the church, the house of prayer, we learn how to pray when we’re in the house we live in, and as we go to work or mosey about. You get busy, but praying sometimes creates a prayerful life at all times.

Yes, we have our prayer lists and we’re honored to honor prayer requests. So many of those are health-related. But hopefully church is the school of prayer where we learn to expand the subjects about which we might pray. We pray to be holy. We pray for wisdom. We pray when we simply are in awe of God and God’s creation. We give thanks. We pray for the vision to see the troubles of the world and how we might make a difference. We pray for guidance, and even ask what hard things God might be needing and asking of us.

We pray for our city, and for our nation and world. Might there be less hysterical rage, and might there be better politics and getting things done for the greater good if the people who claim to be Christian prayed more than they groused, blamed, and posted anger on social media? At least, in such a broken country, we know that Someone’s prayin.’

In church we teach children and grownups how to be confident in prayer with God. We needn’t tremble with Dorothy and her friends before the Wizard of Oz. The true God doesn’t terrify, but listens, embraces and cares. And so we pray with total confidence – not that we can claim the outcomes we wish for. God is a God of hope, whose love prepares us for when our wishes don’t come to be. God is with us, always, even if we don’t pray. Prayer is the realization of the greatest truth in this life. God is with us.

That’s what we say to the world by our very presence, and by our prayers: God is with you. There’s hope. When we pray, we open ourselves and the world to our best possible selves, and to our noblest kind of society.