Tuesday, September 9, 2025

Letter to Malcom: Letter 2 (Part 2)

The second form of prayer that Lewis relates to in this Letter, is the behavior of the congregation during prayer. Lewis speaks highly of a Greek Orthodox mass he once attended in which, "some stood, some knelt, some sat, one crawled about the floor like a caterpillar," and no one cared what anyone else was doing. 

What Lewis does not address in his liberalism of behavior is are there any limits? Certainly, Lewis is assuming that the particular behavior is chosen in order to maximize concentration on the prayer or some other aspect of prayer. If not, what would be the point? So any behavior that would work against this goal would be rejected. Even beyond that I would assume that Lewis would limit any sort of obscene or irreverant behavior during prayer, even though he doesn't say so. An example, would Lewis be accepting of someone coming to pray in a bathing suit? I would assume not. God of course, knows what a person looks like so in that sense it doesn't matter. The person, however, is demonstrating irreverance - one would not appear in front of an important personage in that dress, so how can a person appear in church that way? 

Traditional Jewish prayer allows for a range of behaviors through most of the prayers assuming they are honorable and fitting (I don't think crawling around like a caterpillar would qualify). An exception is when the Holy Ark is open and/or the Torah scrolls are being carried. The only prayer exception is during the amidah in which we stand with feet together in the stance of the straight-one-legged angels who stand before God. 

The idea of copying the angels, or indeed, looking towards others for guidance rather then choosing ones own form of prayer, will be the central question when weighing formalized liturgy against spontaneous supplication. 

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Letter to Malcom: Letter 2 (Part 2)

The second form of prayer that Lewis relates to in this Letter, is the behavior of the congregation during prayer. Lewis speaks highly of a ...