CNY Inspirations: Pray for your enemies

This feature is coordinated by The Post-Standard/Syracuse.com and InterFaith Works of CNY. Follow this theme and author posted Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday.

One major tenet of Christianity is to “pray for your enemies.” Personally, I think Christianity, and most other religions, say that we have no enemies. Nor is this only a religious idea. Our work as humans is to respect everyone, not just the people we already like. However, let’s stick with prayer for the moment. Pray for your enemies: what does that look like inside the human heart?

Prayer is not just asking for things, whether it’s that the Mets win the World Series, or that those people stop acting a certain way and start acting like me. Prayer is about opening the heart to something larger than ourselves. For Christians, that’s God, who is love; but when anyone prays for their enemies, they are opening their heart to the wild and impossible idea that their enemies are humans, too.

That is not easy to do, which is probably why religious figures keep telling people to do it. Moreover, these days, praying for our enemies is one of the most important things we can do. Instead of wishing that they go away, we sit with their humanity and (and here’s where it gets even more difficult) our own hatred. We come face-to-face with the horrifying fact that we ourselves think some people are not human enough.

Again, that is tough work. Nevertheless, in a world where our fellow Americans, our neighbors, are evil because of their political opinions, who they love, or what they look like, we need to spend more time inside of our hearts, untying the knots of hate. Why? Because hatred kills (by heart attacks), hatred destroys what we love (like our country). We can only save things through respect and love.

The Rev. Tim Hannon is Priest and Rector at Christ Episcopal Church in Manlius, NY.