four pillars of prayer

This homily was delivered at the Queens' College Chapel of Cambridge University, Choral Evensong - March 3, 2024.

"The Four Pillars of Prayer"

Good evening. I am truly honored and humbled by the opportunity to stand before you in this lovely place, and I am deeply thankful to our beloved Chaplain Reverend Anna for this invitation.

I pray that you are having a blessed Lent and wish you a joyous Easter. 

As we all gather here with our different creeds, ethnicities, languages, and stories, we are united in our love of Cambridge and our participation in the Evensong’s beautiful hymns and prayers.

When you think of prayer, what comes to mind? For some of us it may be the rushed, tired utterance of the Lord’s Prayer before we go to bed. For others it might be the silence of personal quiet time and meditation. For some it may be the enchanting voices of the Queens’ Chapel Choir.

My understanding of prayer stems from my own faith as a Coptic Orthodox Christian. Founded by St. Mark the Evangelist in the middle of the first century, the Coptic, meaning Egyptian, Church has shaped my sense of what it means to truly pray.

Regardless of the tradition that has influenced our understanding of prayer, perhaps we may agree that the etymology of the word “prayer,” derived from the Latin precari meaning “to beg” is insufficient. In the language of my people, we find a far more powerful etymology: “prayer” in Arabic is sal-ah, which is derived from the verb sil-ah, which means “to connect or form a relationship.” In this regard, prayer is actually connection – it is a relationship between the created and the Creator. Prayer is more than just words. It includes intentions, thoughts, and actions showing our need to relate to our Creator.

This evening, I would like to reflect on four pillars of prayer, tied to each letter of the word PRAY. 

·      To truly pray is to: Purify our heart so that God is our one desire and the object of our love

·      To truly pray is to: Raise our voices in thanksgiving and gratitude for God’s gifts

·      To truly pray is to: Ask that God makes His will for our lives apparent

·      To truly pray is to: Yearn for eternal connection and life with God

Firstly, we must purify our heart so that God is our one desire and the object of our love.

In the Beatitudes, the Lord famously states, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God” (Matt. 5:8). With this promise and all the others in the Beatitudes, we may often misunderstand the meaning of the word “blessed.” To be blessed in this context is to be fulfilled or satisfied. Reflecting on the Beatitudes from this regard – those who are fulfilled or satisfied are those who have a pure heart – one in which God is the sole occupant. All of our emotions are ones rooted in our love for Him and all of His creation. 

At the start of every hour in the Coptic Book of Hours (Horologion), we pray from Psalm 50, entreating God by saying:

Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit in my inward parts. Do not cast me away from Your face; and do not remove Your Holy Spirit from me. Give me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me with a directing spirit.

As we struggle through the weeks of Lent, we are nearing this joy of salvation. In the Cross, some find defeat and destruction, but we should find in it joy and justification. In the Cross, we witness a twofold promise. From the vertical beam, we are connected in our love to God. In the horizontal beam, we are connected in our love to all of God’s creation. Going back to our understanding of prayer in Arabic, derived from the word for “connection,” we may say that the Cross is the prayer that united and redeemed all of humanity. It was on that very Cross that Christ offered His own prayer for Himself, for His disciples, and for all believers, “that they all may be one” (John 17:21).

Secondly, we must raise our voices in thanksgiving and gratitude for God’s gifts.

St. Paul urges us to “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thess. 5:16-18). 

To pray always and show gratitude in all situations is a tall commandment from St. Paul, but it is one that the Coptic Orthodox Church takes to heart.

Every service in the Coptic Church – from the liturgy to weddings, from baptisms to funerals – always begins with the Thanksgiving Prayer:

Let us give thanks to the beneficent and merciful God, the Father of our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ. For He has covered us, helped us, guarded us, accepted us to Himself, spared us, supported, and has brought us to this hour. Let us also ask Him, the Lord our God, the Pantocrator, to guard us in all peace this holy day and all the days of our life.

Thirdly, we must ask that God makes His will for our lives apparent.

Understanding and submitting to God’s will for our lives can be the most challenging aspects of our relationship with Christ. When we pray, we usually want something, and we want an answer immediately. We put God on a timeline, yet He is timeless. We want God to speak to us in our language, yet He is beyond words. In our prayer, we must ask therefore that God have mercy upon us and make His will for our lives apparent. When we ask this of Him with a genuine openness to accept whatever His will may be, He will respond. He speaks to us in mysterious ways, often when we are least expecting it – perhaps through a comment from a family member or through a passage in the Bible or through a sudden event. God has a specific desire and purpose for each of us, but He never infringes on our free will. It is our responsibility to meet Him through prayer and to work to make our will perfectly align to His will.

One of the most beloved prayers in the Coptic Church related to this third point is the Prayer for Guidance in the Book of the Hours. My favorite bit reads:

Lord, You are aware that I do not know what is good for me…Do not let me follow my tendencies, if it will cause me to be confused and fall. Keep me from slipping, help me, and let it be according to Your will. If You see it fit, grant me Your blessing to complete it. If not, remove this desire from my heart. You know all things, nothing is concealed from You, Lord I am Your servant, deal with me as You see fit, as I realize that I will have neither success nor peace unless I submit myself to Your will. Teach me to say in every occasion, “Let it be according to Your will, Lord, not according to my own.” 

Finally, we must yearn for eternal connection and life with God.

David the Prophet gives us a remarkable example of this aspect of prayer in Psalm 143 when he cries, “I spread out my hands to You; My soul longs for you like a thirsty land” (Psalm 143:6). 

Do we yearn for this connection and relationship with God when we pray? Do we express to God how much we want Him to work in our lives when we pray? For prayer to be a connection, there must be two points and an understanding of what it will take to remove the distance and divide between the two. This is what we achieve in prayer – God comes down to us and we rise to Him.

In the words of Pope Shenouda III, who led the Coptic Church from 1971-2012 and who is the subject of my PhD thesis here: 

Prayer is the yearning of the soul and being in the presence of God. It is the yearning of the limited to the Unlimited, the longing of the created to their Creator and the longing of the soul to its source and to its satisfaction.

Thus, to truly pray is to: 

·      Purify our heart so that God is our one desire and the object of our love

·      Raise our voices in thanksgiving and gratitude for God’s gifts

·      Ask that God makes His will for our lives apparent

·      Yearn for connection and eternal life with God

It is my prayer that we all may learn to pray in this way, with fervor, devotion, understanding, and purpose. I pray that God fills your life with success, love, joy, and peace this evening and always. Thank you.

my first book

I'm excited and honored to announce the publication of my first book Your Word Has Given Me Life.

This childhood dream of mine came true as a result of God's infinite love and grace and an extraordinary year that gave me the opportunity to pause, reflect, and write. Thanks to all the wonderful folks at ACTS Press for making this possible. 

You can purchase Your Word Has Given Me Life on Amazon here.

managing the art of the possible

In scrambling to prepare deliverables that my team and I will be presenting to senior leadership, I learned the importance of “managing the art of the possible.” When the head of my project imparted this piece of wisdom, he meant that we should treat this presentation as a sales pitch, in which we creatively and effectively showcase our accomplishments. The idea of managing the art of the possible is ingrained in the notion that we can often meet and exceed the expectations of leadership and our clients if we simply learn how to under-promise and over-deliver.

Working in the extremely competitive environment of management consulting, I have found that we often try to do everything that our clients ask of us, simply because we feel we need to in order to maintain the strength of our relationship. We know very well that any misstep on our part can lead to the rapid termination of our project and the even quicker replacement of our team with one of our competitors. That’s why, in all that we do, our leadership expresses candor regarding the practicality of our client’s requests.

By being clear from the outset about our bandwidth and limitations, we always meet and exceed our client’s expectations. This is only achievable, however, if each team member – from the bottom to the top – is open and honest about their ability to adequately fulfill their responsibilities. I have seen far too many frazzled, stressed-out, and sleep-deprived teammates who have suffered tremendously because they failed to meet a difficult deadline.

Through maintaining total transparency, each of us can masterfully manage the art of the possible through under-promising and over-delivering.

leadership lessons from the Veep

A couple of weeks ago, I was on the Acela train from NYC to DC, living the life of the traveling consultant, when I finally had the chance to confirm that Joe Biden does in fact ride the same train to DC weekly.

Shortly after the train stopped in Wilmington, Mr. Biden walked through the automatic doors into my car, followed by two members of the Secret Service. After a few minutes, he again walked past me, this time carrying a cup of coffee and a snack box that one can purchase in the Acela café car.

As I processed those 10 seconds in which I saw the Veep for the first time, I learned two critical leadership lessons from him:

Walk with determination and confidence, even on unsafe and unknown paths.

Most leaders in positions of power walk into public places with security staff encircling them. Mr. Biden was merely followed by two guards. He led the way across the train to the café, knowing very well that he could easily be caught behind someone blocking the aisle, or even enter a situation in which his life could be in danger. He exuded confidence that nothing would go wrong, even in the midst of a densely populated train full of passengers who hadn’t gone through a security checkpoint to ride the train.

Identify with those whom you lead, and leave your titles and entitlements at the door.

Joe rides the Acela (first class). He doesn’t take a personal jet, when he easily could do so. And, while the first class car comes with complimentary food and beverage service, he chose to buy his own coffee and cheap snacks from the same café that all the non-first class plebeians, like myself, frequent. Moreover, he didn’t have anyone hold his purchases for him. He was like any of us – just trying to get his coffee back to his seat without spilling it on any fellow passengers. Compare this with the common practice of senior leaders in Corporate America, who expect their lowly intern or assistant to fetch them their daily latte and croissant.

This all reminds me of the words of Sarah Churchwell:

"People who are given whatever they want soon develop a sense of entitlement and rapidly lose their sense of proportion."

As a leader – no matter how important or insignificant – be aware, and be like Joe Biden. Have confidence in your actions, identify with those whom you lead, and be judicious in your expectations and demands. And, go buy your intern a cup of coffee for a change.

my board of directors

One of the best pieces of advice I heard from one of my college professors and mentors was the importance of building a “personal Board of Directors” to help guide you through all the challenges and major decisions that life throws at you. Needless to say, I appointed him as the Chairman of my Board. But, in thinking through how to fill the empty seats at the table with members of my network, I've tried to find a balance of these types of individuals:

1. The Challenger. This is the person who keeps it real. They question your thoughts, ideas, and decisions. They serve as the devil’s advocate and always push you to do more and to be bolder. The Challengers help you to constantly think about the big picture, and always ask, “So what’s next?”
2. The Comforter. This is the person who you look to to help guide you during those times when you are down – perhaps when you didn't get your dream job, are experiencing some family problems, or simply feel unhappy or unfulfilled. The Comforters are your go-to when things just aren't working out the way you envisioned.
3. The Connector. This is the final type of member, and they’re the person who has deep connections with the individuals who will help you advance in your career. They’re aligned to the industry you’re in or want to be in, and they facilitate your conversations and relationships with folks in those areas to help you progress toward your career goals.

As you build out your personal Board of Directors look to your network to find the members who will be there for you – to challenge, comfort, and connect you.

millennial privilege

As Millennials, we grew up in an era of immediate, predictable results. The Internet and mobile devices taught us that if we entered the right letters or numbers, we would get the information we needed instantly. That type of activity translates into the Millennial mentality in the sense that we anticipate that if we meet certain requirements – in work or in school or in life – we should get what we want, when we want it.

That’s called privilege. And it’s a difficult beast for non-Millennials to battle.

For example, on more than one occasion, I’ve heard my peers explain that they will get into this or that school or get this or that job/promotion because of their gender and/or race. That’s not to say these folks don’t meet the academic and experience requirements for such schools/jobs/promotions, but their ability to say things like, “I’m a woman of color, so I will get in to a top MBA program,” speaks to the personality of Generation Y.

It is precisely Millennials’ assumption of privilege and expectations for immediate results that can make them difficult employees to manage. Management professor Jane Gibson (2009) and her colleagues found that when asked to rank a list of qualities in order of importance for career success, Millennials ranked “loyalty” lower than both Generation Xers and Baby Boomers. This highlights the notion that when Millennials do not have their needs and expectations met, they will likely jump ship. In fact, 91% of Millennials expect to stay in a job for less than three years, meaning that they could have between 15 to 20 jobs over the course of their working lives (Future Workplace 2012).

So what’s the point? Millennials simply need time to learn and grow in the real world. Once they realize that the workforce is not at all like college – where you get graded and where it’s pretty clear how to get the letter that you want – their sense of privilege should begin to dwindle. In the meantime, their managers and employers need to ramp up their coaching and mentoring efforts to help guide these Millennials toward success in the workforce.

It's a difficult undertaking, but absolutely necessary, as Millennials - with their different values, expectations, and needs - form the future of the workforce.

learning in the real world

You’ve just graduated with a shiny diploma and are starting your first real job. You’re excited about making money, meeting new people, and crafting your future.

What you don’t realize is that you’re about to go from being intellectually stimulated and engaged on a daily basis in the classroom through reading, writing, and discussion to potentially sitting in front of Outlook, Excel, and PowerPoint all day.

So what do you do?

You need to quickly understand that Corporate America can be a land devoid of learning in the conventional sense. You won’t necessarily need to memorize theories, regurgitate facts, or solve equations.

In my first management consulting job out of college, I felt like I wasn’t learning anything, simply because I didn’t have to. There were no exams, and the spreadsheets and decks I worked on rarely required me to bring in my own knowledge or research. When I realized that my career could indefinitely progress in that way, I decided to supplement this lack of learning through independently studying three different topics:

1) Client’s industry. I’ve been on consulting projects at both government agencies and financial institutions, and have found that learning more about my client’s industry, competition, and challenges thoroughly informs my understanding of the work. It’s easy to just jump onto a project and get bogged down by the details that you fail to understand the big picture. Understand the context and nature of the engagement to help yourself grasp the purpose of your work, whether it's for your company or for a client.

2) Random interest. Choose a random topic that you’re interested in and read everything you can possibly learn about it until you get bored and/or become a subject matter expert. For example, I chose to learn more about organizational behavior, a topic I was introduced to in college. Learning about something you’re passionate about is exciting and helps bring you back to your college days when learning was fun, and not necessarily always seen as a chore.

3) Myself. Ever since I moved to New York a year ago, I’ve been engaged in a lot more reflection than I’m used to, and I think the MTA is to blame. My daily subway commute to and from work has afforded me the opportunity to think about my life and be alone with my thoughts. If you don’t ride the subway daily, find 5-10 minutes daily to think about your day and life. You might get to know yourself too well, but trust me, it’s worth it!

There’s too much about the world and yourself that you could be studying. Stop procrastinating and get to work!