Being able to pray ex tempore, whether silently or vocally has always been difficult for me. Every time I try to pray not using a set prayer I feel a little like what Martin Luther must have felt when he tried to say his first Mass. My brain just locks up and I basically spend a lot of time kicking the dirt with my heel and saying "Ah. Well. Um," before finally squeaking out words of adoration, confession, thanks and supplication. But I soldier on as best I can. I've been doing a lot of this soldiering on of late and it hasn't gotten any easier.
I've found that the use of set prayers from books like the Book of Common Prayer and The Valley of Vision useful in organizing my thoughts and setting things in an orderly manner. The thing about using set prayers is to really pray using them and not just read the words as if they were a magic formula. I usually modify the prayers a bit to make them more personal and to more closely express my thoughts.
What brings this to mind is that I was recently re-acquainted with an old Cornish prayer:
"From ghoulies and ghosties and long leggety beasties,
"And things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us."
At first glance the prayer looks like the product of an unsophisticated and superstitious mind. But could there be more to it than a plea for protection from mythical entities? Could it be a prayer to be released from fear? Even today one occasionally hears of depression referred to as "the black dog." The creatures mentioned in the prayer could be regarded as metaphors for those fears and memories and obsessions that we experience but have no names for.
But, then again, maybe not.
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