Except that I don't

I cry aloud to God,
aloud to God, and he will hear me
Psalm 77:1 ESV

"I cry aloud to God."  Except that I don't.

Other than public worship and prayer in small groups, I am in the habit of silent prayer.  Even when there are words to my prayer they have only thought and no voice.  And I had not even thought about it until I read Psalm 77 this week.  Just for the record, this is not my first reading of Psalm 77 but it is the first time "I cry aloud" struck me and made me think.

There are perhaps good reasons for voiceless prayers.  Or at least I think of them as good reasons.  God, of course, is not limited in that he can only hear my prayers if they are actually voiced.  He hears the silent thoughts in my head.  And were I a mute, unable to voice my prayers, he would hear them with perfect clarity.  You don't have to say it out loud for God to hear.

Another good reason for my silent supplication is simply decorum.  First it disturbs others around me less if I am silent.  This is true when using the word "disturb" in the sense of distract or in the sense of "creep out".  I am often saying my prayers in the morning while my family is milling about, readying for the day.  talking to God aloud disturbs and interrupts them: "What's that you said Dad?" - "Nothing.  Wasn't talking to you."

In other situations, perhaps on a crowded bus, praying aloud disturbs others in the latter sense.  But I could always pretend I was talking on my bluetooth cell.  It is difficult, however, to make the collect for peace, which begins "O God, who art the author of peace," sound conversational.  Quiet whispering these prayers does not necessarily make them less disturbing in this latter sense.  Indeed it might make it more so.

Yet even when I am alone, praying out loud feels strange and uncomfortable.

But the psalmist says, I cry aloud.  Why?  The expression here is perhaps merely poetic, if merely is a word one can fairly use with the poetic.  Psalm 77 as a whole is a lament.  The psalmist is in distress.  And in distress, perhaps, I cry out.  Normally I wouldn't but as I seek for consolation and comprehension in distress and confusion, I cry out to God.  Except that I don't.

Suffering and distress easily may deepen my muteness in prayer as I sink into my own thoughts.  And that perhaps is the important bit.  In silence I sink into my own thoughts.  Speaking aloud gets me a little out of my own mind and into a conversation with Someone.  In silence my mind and prayers wander.  Aloud, they wander less.  Speaking prayers aloud brings a focus and makes it seem more like the conversation is it meant to be.

And one other thing occurs to me.  In crying aloud we engage our bodies in prayer, or at least the physical apparatus that makes sound.  Audible prayer embodies or enfleshes it in a way that silent prayer does not. In that sense it is a uniquely human way of praying.  The angels, who technically have no bodies and are spirit alone, pray in their thoughts.  As humans with vocal chords, we alone may cry aloud.

I read Psalm 77 yesterday.  This morning, I went to a place by myself and "cried aloud."  I gave actual voice to my prayers.  I cannot say that it transformed my experience of prayer, but it was a small obedience to what I had read the previous day.   And that alone may have been the point.