Stringfellow on prayer/obscenity

Stringfellow:

“The event of prayer, certain acts called prayer, the very word ‘prayer’ have gathered such ridiculous associations. That is not only the case with the obscene performances, which pass as public prayer, at inaugurations, in locker rooms, before Rotary luncheons, and in many churchly sanctuaries, but also the practice of private prayer is attended by gross profanity, the most primitive superstitions, and sentimentality which is truly asinine….

...When I write that my own situation [during my illness] in those months of pain and decision can be described as prayer, I do not only recall that during that time I sometimes read the Psalms and they became my psalms, or that, as I have also mentioned, I occasionally cried ‘Jesus’ and that name was my prayer, but I mean that I also at times would shout ‘Fuck!’ and that was no obscenity, but a most earnest prayerful utterance”

-William Strinfellow, A Second Birthday, pp. 99, 108-9,HT: Faith and Theology

Even though you hear him unsure the sermon should have been released on video, you will recall that same "non-obscene F-Bomb" in this Sunday sermon by the pastor of The Worship Band Formerly Know as The Hype: