10 Finger Prayer

"Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a miserable sinner."

It occurred to me that this prayer has 10 words in it, and you can count that out on your fingers. When I was young, I was taught a 10 finger prayer: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." The idea is that, whenever you look at your hands, you remember the prayer and say it. You say it to keep motivated through out the day. You're reminding yourself that you're not alone and Christ is there to help you. No challenge is too big.

I just read two short stories by J.D. Salinger called "Franny" and "Zooey." In "Franny", the protagonist Franny (shocker, she has the same name as the title!) is afflicted because she read a book called The Way of the Pilgrim.

In THIS book (yes, it's a book within a book, bare with me), the main character has lost his wife and his family. The pilgrim gets it into his head that he wants to know what it means to "pray without ceasing" in Thessalonians. He goes around Russia, asking various priests and theologians what it means. Eventually, he comes across a monk (at least I think it was a monk) who tells him about the Jesus Prayer. The idea behind it is that you pray "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a miserable sinner" every moment of every day until it becomes as prevalent, unnoticed, and necessary as your heartbeat. He then goes around Russia telling everyone what he learned.

In the first short story, Franny is having a rough time. She keeps praying it and feels guilty often. She's not able to control herself at times and says things that she regrets. When I was reading it, I thought that what she had to say was been mean in the context, but she was never wrong. Franny also never really said anything that was morally wrong to say. She just shared her opinions, and she was right about them (in my opinion). But she said them at the wrong time, and I do think she was right to feel bad about when she said them.

I tried the Jesus Prayer for a bit after this, but I didn't have enough discipline to do it well. I'm no expert on it. I didn't try it for long enough to say if it leads to enlightenment and becomes like your heartbeat, but I did notice that I would be very conscious about how much I needed mercy while I was doing it. I had more focus throughout my day. I had a lot more patience with the people around me because I believe that it is a mercy that they are in my life to begin with. I felt bad when I spoke out of turn, and glad when I was included in things. It took my focus off myself, and I felt bad for people who focused on themselves.

It seemed to me that we are all trapped in our own heads and, as a result, are distancing ourselves from each other. It seemed like we needed mercy for having opinions, because our opinions are what cause dissent.

In "Zooey", Franny talks about how ego is disgusting her, and she hates the fact that she has her own and how it gets her in trouble. Everyone is so impressed with their own ideas and opinion that everyone is just disgustingly self-centered. People have a keen eye on themselves and on nothing outside themselves. Poets more often focus on shocking people instead of talking about something beautiful. Shouldn't people be trying to figure out what is beautiful instead of impressing people?

Probably, but maybe we aren't supposed to get hung up on this question.

This thought made me struggle with a very difficult question: How can we have opinions and be happy while we see what is wrong with the world?

Now, because I haven't read The Way of the Pilgrim or practiced the Jesus Prayer enough, I do not know how valid this thought is, but it's been good for me to think about. Zooey (Franny's older brother), tells her what he thought of the prayer. All he does is talk about how great Jesus is, and how you should not be praying the Jesus Prayer if you do not like Him.

But strangely enough, that's been the answer to the problem of the Ego.

Zooey shows Franny that her focus was on the wrong part of the prayer. My focus was on the wrong part of the prayer. Whenever I said it, I focused on the fact that I needed mercy. That I was a sinner and something was wrong both with me and the world. Franny seemed to think the same thing, but we missed the first part of the prayer. When Zooey thought of it, he reflected on "Lord Jesus Christ." Ego comes second to that. For some reason, God did decide to create Ego(s), opinions, feelings, and sentiments when He made the universe. He wanted to give us  the ability to say things are good or things are bad, and to say that it was a bad move on His part is an exercise of our own Ego. But this is not our system to dictate, just to be a part of. We're in God's world, not ours.

Zooey is saying that Ego is not a disgusting thing. It isn't bad for people to have opinions and thoughts and feelings. What is bad is to get stuck in them. What is bad is when the fact that we're sinners and need mercy takes the focus off "Lord Jesus Christ."

People can be wrong and often are. We do bad things and are hurt by people around us. Self-centeredness can lead to a variety of disgusting habits. Yet looking at these parts of life is only helpful for so long. Instead of focusing on how wrong we can be, we can rejoice in the fact that we have the freedom to make decisions. Instead of being plagued by how much we can be hurt, how about we stay in awe at the fact that we can even feel to begin with. Instead of looking at ourself and asking how to preserve that, why not just be glad that we have a self? I think, therefore, I can be thankful for thinking.

To put it simply, we're plagued so much over the implications of our feelings and thoughts that we are never just simply amazed at the fact that we can feel and think. We're so worried about winning an argument with a lost soul that we do not marvel at the fact that two soul's are finding a way to commune an touch each other through a transmission of sounds waves that our ears are configured to both pick up and our mind has been trained to decipher. Though it's important to talk about whether something or someone is good or bad, right or wrong, we should never lose sight that it is a thing or a person.

When you pray (when I pray), you should never lose sight that you are trying, first and foremost, to talk to someone. When you talk to someone (when I talk to someone), you should always be talking with them, not just using them as another means of viewing yourself. Maybe I could have a conversation where I learn about them instead of trying to learn about myself. I need to focus more on the first part of the prayer. The part that  I glossed over in both 10 finger prayers.

"Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a miserable sinner."