“How Prayer Works” by Kaveh Akbar
Tucked away in our tiny bedroom so near each other
the edge of my prayer rug covered the edge of his, my
brother and I prayed. We were 18 and 11 maybe, or 19
and 12. He was back from college where he built his own
computer and girls kissed him on the mouth. I was barely
anything, just wanted to be left alone to read and watch
The Simpsons.
We prayed together as we had done thousands of times,
rushing ablutions over the sink, laying our janamazes out
toward the window facing the elm which one summer
held an actual crow’s nest full of baby crows: fuzzy, black-
beaked fruit, they were miracles we did not think to
Treasure.
My brother and I hurried through sloppy postures of
praise, quiet as the light pooling around us. The room
was so small the twin bed took up nearly all of it, and
as my brother, tall and endless, moved to kneel, his foot
caught the coiled brass doorstop, which issued forth a
loud brooong. The noise crashed around the room like a
long, wet bullet shredding through porcelain.
My brother bit back a smirk and I tried to stifle a snort
but solemnity ignored our pleas—we erupted, laughter
quaking out our faces into our bodies and through the
floor. We were hopeless, laughing at our laughing, our
glee an infinite rope fraying off in every direction.
It’s not that we forgot God or the martyrs or the Prophet’s
holy word—quite the opposite, in fact, we were boys built
to love what was in front of our faces: my brother and I
on the floor draped across each other, laughing tears into
our prayer rugs.”
On my first night of dorm duty this year, we re-instated a practice called Mindfulness Mondays, where we spend one to two minutes practicing mindfulness meditation. On our first evening, as we began the practice of meditation, listening to the intermittent sound of a Tibetan bell, one of the girls suppressed a giggle. As the meditation continued, you could feel the laughter dancing on the surface of the silence, waiting to explode. Finally, I said: “It’s okay to laugh,” and they all erupted in laughter. In the nervousness of those first days together in the dorm, this experience helped everyone relax, exhale, and establish a space to be ourselves. Reinhold Niehbuhr once wrote that: “Humour is, in fact, a prelude to faith; and laughter is the beginning of prayer.”
Kaveh Akbar’s poem celebrates the holiness of laughter—a practice we could all use a little more of in these divided times. I love how he describes the routine and rhythm of their morning prayer, as it is as much about the sacred act, as it is about the sanctity of brotherly love and the miracle of the elm outside their window, bearing its “fuzzy, black-beaked fruit.” When our hearts are open to God, we receive the gifts of joy, hope, and compassion—why wouldn’t these feelings inspire laughter? As we go about our days, may we find moments of spontaneous laughter, and may the contagion of this laughter spread to others.
