I want to pray like a 1940s housewife
Getting inspiration from Catherine Marshall
As I walked in the early morning hours today, heaven seemed to rack its shot and pull the world from darkness to light, cuing the sunrise. With each step I mulled a thought. It pulled into focus just as the world around me moved from sepia tones to full colour: How should I pray?
Hold that thought. And now travel back with me to a long ago decade for a quick flashback: 90s television. Long live the reruns.
Have you ever seen the show Life Goes On? Rebecca and Corky. Siblings struggling through life and love in modern American suburbia. Becca was the little sister. Kellie Martin the actress who played her.
Martin later appeared for about three seasons in the medical drama ER, with one of the most hilarious moments involving an x-ray and a carrot. I loved watching ER growing up. It’s famous for George Clooney, Juliana Margulies and was created by the prolific Michael Chricton.
Still with me?
Kellie Martin—Becca in Life Goes On and Lucy Knight in ER—also starred as the title character Christy in another much-loved American television series which I never watched, based on the books of the same name (which I never read) but which were written by Catherine Marshall.
And Catherine Marshall is the author of books on prayer that I’ve read a number of times and return to. One book is called The Helper. It’s published by the imprint Marshall started with her second husband, Leonard LeSourd, who was editor for Guideposts Magazine for close to three decades.
I inherited a bunch of Marshall’s books from my grandmother’s book collection when she passed away. As I researched Marshall and asked myself, “Why do I even have this book?”, it started to make sense.
Marshall’s first husband was Peter Marshall, who was a Presbyterian Minister. And a famous one at that. And, of course, my grandfather was a Presbyterian Minister and the Marshall’s story would have coincided with my grandparents’ ministry and timeline. So, besides being a cultural heavyweight at the time, the denominational connection is a clue as to why they had all the books and therefore why I have these books.
Where we land and where we think we’ll go
Peter Marshall, Catherine Marshall’s first husband, has an amazing story of wanting to give his life in missions to God in Asia. But he ended up as a chaplain to the US Senate instead. There, he was a popular, charismatic preacher and fell in love with a much younger Catherine who had a transformational faith story as she battled tuberculosis for three years.
This back story is covered in the various books Catherine Marshall wrote over the years.
I first read her Adventures in Prayer, then A Man Named Peter (which is one of Marshall’s most famous books and became a film).
And, of course, I’ve read The Helper. The book sort of jumped out at me from the shelf when I visited my hometown for the celebration of my father’s life a few years ago. I was drawn to it because of the name of the author.
Marshall’s writings, especially on prayer, remind me of the unique plot points that create our stories.
The anecdotes she shares in her work from a life of writing, a life integrated into the world of politics and ministry, are fascinating. Marshall walks the reader through her doubt, her hesitation and her learning journey as she walked humbly with God in the day-to-day. What she discovered early on was that despite belonging to a tradition of faith and being highly biblically literate, she had very little experiential knowledge of the Spirit—something I think will ring true for a lot of Christians today, no matter your denominational affiliation.
Her writing is eye-opening, filled with personal anecdotes from her unusual and inspiring life, and written without pretension.
I like that both her writing and her prayer style match: she is unselfconscious and unapologetic. Marshall addresses the praying life with respect, personal authority and a brilliant curiosity that includes healthy doses of skepticism.
But her personal journey in discovering who God is, what prayer is, and what it all means for the individual Christian doesn’t stall on skepticism and none of it caters or cows to cynicism, which I expect would be a bigger hurdle for an author writing on the subject today.
Because she isn’t from our time, perhaps it’s easier for me as a reader to listen to her. It could be my own personal bias, but there seems a greater weight, authenticity and authority in her writing than many who belong to the pantheon of spiritual and self-help writers of our day.
This passage strikes me, like a slap across the face.
What is the truth about our human condition? None of us had anything to do with our being born; no control over whether we are male or female, Japanese or Russian or [Canadian], white or yellow or black. Nor can we influence our ancestry, nor our basic mental or physical equipment.
After we are born, an autonomic nervous system controls every vital function that sustains life. A power that no one really understands keeps our heart beating, our lungs breathing, our blood circulating, our body temperature at 98.6 degrees. A surgeon can cut tissues, but he is helpless to force the body to bind the severed tissue together again.
We grow relentlessly and automatically. Self Sufficient? Scarcely.
Even the planet on which we live … we had nothing to do with its creation either. The little planet Earth is exactly the right distance – some ninety-three million miles – from the source of its heat and light. Any nearer and we would be consumed by solar radiation; any farther and we would be frozen to death. The balance of oxygen and nitrogen in the air is exactly right for the support of life, the elements in our soil, and the creation of rare rock deposits – all of this goes on quite apart from man – the little man who struts and fumes upon the earth.
Did Jesus have any comment to make about all this? Yes, as always, He put His finger on the very heart of the matter: “… without me ye can do nothing.”
~Quotation from Catherine Marshall's Adventures in Prayer. Ballantine Books: New York, 1975.
That's the right place to start.
When I wonder how to pray some mornings, I think about Catherine Marshall. And I’m motivated to pray like a 1940s housewife.
I must find her books and read them!
I’ve found distance from my birth creates a humbling perspective of the greatness of my God coupled with His desire for intimacy with me. Imagine that!!
I love Catherine Marshall. Her book Meeting God at Every Turn was the first book I picked up as a new Christian. I was 17 and on my way to university to study Journalism. She was a writer too and I was captivated. I’ve read her books many times through the years. In fact I just took a copy of Beyond Ourselves down from the shelves tonight to reread. I discovered it on my mother’s bookshelves after she died. I’d like to think Catherine was a friend to her too.