Prayers for All Occasions
May 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Last Sunday at the Adult Sunday School that I teach at my church, we talked about the different types of prayer. In a group brainstorming session, we listed the different ways we pray. Far from a theoretical, academic or exhaustive compendium, this is an experiential compilation of how prayer works in the lives of a group of amazing souls. I share it here:
Supplication - This is prayer in which you ask Source for some outcome, as in "Source, please heal my illness." Sometimes the best way to pray in supplication is to add, "I ask for this or whatever serves my highest good." This recognizes that our narrow viewpoint may not include the goodness or lessons that Source might offer, which are far more perfect than anything we could conceive of.
Intercessory - This is prayer is for the well-being of others, as in "I ask for your blessings for my daughter and son."
Bargaining - A form of supplication, you bargain when you promise God or Source something in return for the blessing sought. Hey, we all do this from time to time, but we recognize that Source’s love is abundant and Source probably just chuckles (metaphorically) when we bargain-pray.
Surrender - The best example of this is Jesus’ prayer on the cross when he said, "Not my will, but Thy will be done." Surrender happens when we hand over to Source or God our worries, our grasping for a desired outcome and recognize the abundance of God’s blessings.
Ritual Prayers (Lord’s Prayer, the rosary) - These prayers are pre-scripted and can carry great emotional significance.
Seeking connection - In this type, we ask for connection with Source energy.
Meditation/contemplative/silence - Although our group disagreed over whether meditation is a form of prayer, I list it here. A participant reminded us of the saying, "Prayer is talking to God while meditation is listening to God." For me, meditation is getting in touch with the Divinity within our souls. It’s our attempt to silence the ego’s talk in order to reveal our God Self’s voice. It’s a way to acknowledge our connection with Source in silence.
Affirmative prayer (saying affirmations) - One participant cited Louise Hays’ affirmations, found in her book, "You Can Heal Your Life", as a prayer that she has memorized and uses as a prayer. Affirmations are a way of acknowledging your connection with Source and your strengths and talents.
Breath prayer - A breath prayer is a combination of two or four brief phrases that you mentally repeat on the in-breath and the out-breath. This could be called a long mantra, and is a beautiful way to incorporate repetitive prayers with observation of the breath.
Feel the oneness - Sitting in the knowledge of your connectedness with Source and all that is.
Praise and gratitude - "God is great" is an example of praise, as well as the Hebrew blessing, "Baruch attah adonai, Eloheinu melech ha’olam" (Blessed are you, King of the Universe). We express the wonder and the mystery of Source in our prayers of praise. Or, we express our deep gratitude to Source for the blessings we receive.
Song, music - Music can transport us to a state that incorporates both our emotions and our spirit.
Nature - Many people, myself included, sense awe, mystery and oneness while in nature. I love to sit in my backyard and just observe - I listen to the birds’ songs and the music of the wind in the tress, I appreciate the vivid colors of my garden, I smell the jasmine vine (see my post about resurrection in the garden), I feel the wind on my face.
Circular prayer - This is a group experience of prayer in which each person sequentially adds her spoken prayer to the collective. Once each person in the circle has spoken their prayer, a collective "amen" is said by the leader or the group.
Visualization - This is a variation of the affirmative prayer, in which we visualize a desired outcome, or visualize a process that leads us to a spiritual awakening. For example, I visualize heavenly light pouring into the top of my head in order to initiative a connection with the spirit world.
Walking - Conscious walking, or walking meditation, is a way of focusing your attention on your breath and your body.
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Sh’ma
April 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment
I’m in Charleston, SC this week for a conference. As I was walking the streets of this lovely and historic town this afternoon, I came to a Jewish synagogue, called Congregation Beth Elohim, that has a beautiful garden. The gate was open to the garden, so I walked in, thinking I would simply see another one of the beautiful secret gardens for which this city is well known. It was a nice garden, but what caught my attention was the inscription that was chiseled in the stone over the entrance to the stately sanctuary. It was a wonderful English translation of the heart prayer of Judaism, the Sh’ma (Deuteronomy 6:4), that I had never heard before. Most of us who come from a Judeo-Christian background recognize the Sh’ma even though Christians may not know its common Hebrew name. We know it as, "Hear oh Israel, the Lord our God is one." Listen with your heart to the different language that I discovered this afternoon:
"Hear, oh Israel, the Lord our God is the sole eternal being."
I’ve always had trouble with "The Lord our God is one", because I interpreted it as a way of turning the Israelites against the religions and deities of their neighbors, who had many gods and goddesses. To me, the Sh’ma represents the ancient Hebrew patriarch’s systematic obliteration of Goddess-worship - in ancient, earth-based religions, a Goddess was often accompanied by gods (usually Her son) or She went by many names. To say that "The Lord our God (notice the male implication) is one" declares not only that monotheism is the ticket but that the Hebrew God is the only way - the Lord God’s way or the highway, so to speak. I take a dim view of the ascendancy of any religion over another, so this assertion goes against the grain for me. And, as Kristin (me) the teenager would often assert, what about the Christian Trinity - isn’t that a polytheistic view of divinity? What’s so wrong with polytheism, I would ask my Sunday School teachers. They did their best to describe it in a way I could grasp, but I don’t remember being satisfied by the answers.
So, back to the present and the inscription at Congregation Beth Elohim. God is the sole eternal being. I can really get that. The concept of a "being" is much less discrete than a "god", so my mental image of the Divine is more formless when we describe it as a being. Being can be a state of consciousness, which I also like as a description of the Divine. Solely eternal - yes, I can buy that - God is the alpha and omega, the ground of our being, the Source, the Infinite Intelligence, the eternal. I like it!
I’ll just add that I believe that we, too, are part of the eternal being. A Course in Miracles tells us that "God is incomplete without you." We share in the eternal being-ness of the Divine, and we are all one. One with each other and one with the Divine.
I am so glad I diverted my walk into that synagogue’s garden. Thank you, Congregation Beth Elohim, for a new perspective on this ancient wisdom.
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Divine Wisdom
April 17, 2008 | 2 Comments
This week, I’ve been sharing ways that we can connect to Divine Wisdom. We’ve discussed the four ways that we perceive spirit in our lives and I shared a meditation that helps me converse with God. Today, I’d like to share some of the wisdom I’ve heard in the past week. I think that each one of us can benefit from these messages.
Here is what the Divine told me this week:
"Remain in the energy of allowing, not the energy of fear, especially with money. Fear sets up a wall around you through which money cannot flow to you. Open your heart, body and soul and just allow blessings in."
"Peace within ourselves is the pre-requisite to external peace. Teach forgiveness."
"You do well hearing me in your meditations, but listen to me during the day. Take your journal and write what I tell you. In this way, you will learn to listen to me during the day. In this way, you will know what to do."
"You’ve had strong feelings today. But I tell you the envy you feel is out of place. Beloved, you are exactly where I want you to be. I have a plan for you and how could you be anywhere else? Why can’t you accept it for what it is, which is perfect?"
I share these pearls of wisdom as my gift to you today.
Interested in the power of forgiveness? Come to my Forgiveness Workshop this Saturday, April 19, 2008.
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Prayers, Love and Emotions
March 1, 2008 | 1 Comment
I heard Lynne McTaggert, author of The Intention Experiment, speak last night about her research into the latest scientific theories about the power of thought to change matter. It was great to hear her personally explain many of the concepts I have read in her books.
I’ve discussed her work in previous posts in this blog and I’d like to expand on a premise I proposed before. McTaggert makes a distinction between prayer and intention that I don’t grasp. She says, “With intention, the agent of change is human; with prayer it is God.” Because I believe that each human being carries the essence or spark of God in their hearts and souls, humans are God’s agents of change. I therefore equate prayer and intention in most instances - read on for more!
Two more thoughts about this: First, that in order for our intentions to be Godly, they must come from love and not fear. In other words, intentions must come from the pure essence, the God essense, of the soul. Intentions that aim to harm someone or something originate from fear, not love. For an intention to double as a prayer, the intention must embody the highest good for all those affected by it.
I guess a corollary to that statement is that prayers that seek to harm another or to bless us at the expense of another are not true prayers. I always wonder what God thinks of us when we pray for our team to win the football game. Assuming that the other team prays the same thing, how does God choose which team’s prayers to answer? I’ll leave that as a rhetorical question for right now.
Secondly, an intention or prayer is best manifested when emotions are included in it. You do this by imagining how you or the person you are praying for feel when the intention becomes form. For example, I pray that this blog will be successful and touch other people’s hearts and help me find my voice. Therefore, I set my intention while imagining the feelings of satisfaction and joy I will get when I know that my writing has touched others.
Want to get involved in world-wide intention experiments? Please visit Lynne McTaggert’s website at www.theintentionexperiment.com and sign up for her e-newsletter.
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Trusting God
February 26, 2008 | 1 Comment
Last week was a hard week for me. I am making a transition in my business, away from what I’ve been doing for the past ten years and into something unknown. This blog is part of that transition. As I’ve mentioned before, my promise is to blog for the year 2008 and see what happens. I hope that by sharing my spiritual journey with you, you will find courage on yours.
My journey is taking me through some dark woods right now. I look ahead, and I can’t see where the path is going beyond the next few feet. The guiding moonlight has not yet appeared. Periods of transitions are scarey to me, while at the same time they are strangely exciting. The problem is, I am not a patient person. I have trouble waiting for anything. However, I am comforted by the affirmation that Julia Cameron, in her book The Artist’s Way, suggests: "Leap, and the net will appear."
So, I am trying to trust God and the Universe to bless my intention and grace my transition period. I am trying to remain in a state of quiet expectation and excitement. Where will this take me? I am trying to set my intention and let God take care of the details. I trust that the right people will show up in my life to help me, that money will come to me in the right amounts and at the right times, and that I am on the right path for me at this time.
Prayer:
Source of our being-ness, I rest in your arms. I trust in the process of change. I trust that the universe will bring me blessings, not curses. I leap and the net appears. Amen.
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Redemption
February 6, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Redemption is such an exciting experience when it happens to me. Redemption excites me and incites in me an incredibly grateful heart. It makes me realize that I truly walk hand-in-hand with the Divine – just like you do, like each one of us do. I hope that by sharing my story, you might awaken to the Divine’s redemptive power in your life.
Through email yesterday, I received a sizable order for my book about the technical services industry, called Spectacular Support Centers (www.spectacularsupportcenters.com), from a company with whom I had a bad experience when I spoke at their conference several years ago. Out of the blue, this company’s bookstore representative requested copies of my book to sell at their upcoming conference – the same conference that I had the bad experience in a previous year! The enormous significance of this simple book order didn’t hit me until last night. While packing the books for shipment, I suddenly put all the pieces together.
This, I realized, is redemption in action! It took me several months to get over the hurt and humiliation of the experience at that conference (I won’t share details, but suffice it to say that I am both a perfectionist and an obsessor, so when I’m humiliated, whether it was my fault or not, I obsess about it). I was mad at myself and at the organization. In retrospect, both parties were equally at fault for whatever wrong was done. One of my regrets was that my angry response to the situation precluded any chance of working together again – neither party would have wanted that! Or, perhaps, that was just my interpretation of it.
But – my book opened a neutral avenue for us to work together again, in a non-threatening, indirect way. “This is a God-thing!” I almost shouted as I taped shut the box of books I was packing. This is redemption.
Redemption.
Redemption is possible in every situation. Seek it. Indulge it when it happens, but above all, be grateful for it when it graces your life. That’s how I felt last night.
Prayer:
Oh God of Many Names, I am full of gratitude for your grace and the redemption you sent me. Help me to know in my heart that redemption is always possible; indeed, it is a possibility that resides beneath the present illusion. Help all sentient beings recognize the joy of redemption in their lives. Amen.
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Negative Thoughts
January 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Much has been written, said and published about the Law of Attraction recently. The movie, “The Secret”, was a run-away best seller despite its non-Hollywood origins. The Law of Attraction states that what you think about and focus on becomes reality through the energy of thoughts. In my last post, I remarked that I’ve read Lynne Mc Taggert’s book called The Intention Experiment: Using your Thoughts to Change Your Life and the World and find it fascinating.
One of the topics McTaggert broaches in the book is the power of negative thoughts. She calls this the gremlin effect, and relates several stories from her own life that illustrate the potential power of negative thoughts. In the adult Sunday school class that I teach at Pathways Church (www.pathwaysuu.org), we discussed the gremlin effect and what negative implications our thoughts may have. Participants (including me) shamefacedly shared gremlin effect stories - ranging from pregnancy miscarriages to premonitions about sex offenders to deaths. In all these stories, we wonder if it really was our vengeful or hateful thoughts towards another or ourselves that caused ill effect. In many cases, it appears to be a correlation between thoughts and negative effects.
If vengeful thoughts have negative consequences, must we feel completely responsible and therefore guilty for what happens? I have some strong opinions about that. I believe that our thoughts are only one variable in the equation. The other variables include the other person’s thoughts, the society’s thoughts and the sacred contract of all souls involved in the situation. Carolyn Myss, in her book Sacred Contracts: Awakening Your Divine Potential, describes how each soul agrees to take on several lifetime challenges or archetypal situations before birth. Michael Newton, in his book Journey of Souls: Case Studies of Life between Lives, also describes this pre-birth process. With its consent, the soul is pre-destined, if you will, to encounter situations in that lifetime that will challenge it to respond in ways that could help the soul evolve and mature. We all are born having made these agreements in heaven. I call these contracts lifetime pillars – the big learning opportunities we have in a lifetime. As an example, a lifetime pillar for me is learning to take negative criticism without using it against myself, without self-recrimination.
The concept is similar to karma, except that we agree to and accept the challenge before birth. A soul might acknowledge its need to learn compassion due to a demonstrated lack of it in a previous lifetime, so it agrees to encounter life situations in which it could feel the lack of compassion from another.
When something “bad” happens to ourselves or others, I believe we need to consider what pillar in that life is being evoked or challenged. Of course, it is only speculation on our part as to what the other person’s challenge is, but nevertheless, we must acknowledge the possibility of a pillar. So, it is not just our negative thoughts that may have caused a “bad” effect, but the intersection of at least four elements: our thoughts, our sacred contract, the thoughts of the other person and the sacred contract that person made before birth.
What are your thoughts?
Prayer:
Holy One, help us take responsibility for our thoughts without taking blame. Amen.
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Intention and Prayer
January 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Recently, I read the book called “The Intention Experiment” by Lynne McTaggert. It’s a fascinating, if dense, review of current research (a lot of which is controversial) into the nature of thought, healing, intention and prayer. Although McTaggert has a different view of prayer than I do (I’ll comment on that later), I agree with her statement that “We can no longer view our… thoughts as the private, self-contained workings of an individual brain. Dozens of scientists have produced thousands of papers… offering sound evidence that thoughts are capable of profoundly affecting all aspects of our lives.” (p.194)
What a profound statement – our thoughts, negative or positive, are not at all private because they create energy. She suggests that our thoughts are communicated through what quantum physicists call the Zero Point Field or the vacuum. The Zero Point Field is that which remains when a container is emptied of all matter and is brought to a temperature of absolute zero, an extremely frigid temperature at which no energy should be perceptible. Yet, there is a huge amount of minute oscillations that scientists are beginning to measure and study. The Zero Point Field appears to be an active communication medium even in situations in which no electromagnetic energy can penetrate – it is all pervasive and ever present. Kinda like God. Indeed, the Zero Point Field may be the communication medium of the spirit world (my words).
Where I disagree with McTaggert is in her definition of the difference between intention and prayer. She says, “With intention, the agent of change is human; with prayer it is God.” I believe that God is immanent, meaning God is the spark of divinity that resides within each of us; God is the essence of our best self, our highest or true self. Therefore, if we make intentions from our true self, intentions are of God and the line between prayer and intention cannot be drawn. I do concede that human intentions may not originate from our highest self; they may arise from the less-than-altruistic thoughts we may have. Those are not prayers, but curses – against ourselves and against others.
The challenge is to be aware of our thoughts as much as possible. It is a call to mindfulness, a call to vigilance in thinking thoughts that are worthy of being heard by everyone around you. After all, on an energetic level, your thoughts are shared and have impact on both you and others, whether you like it or not.
We’ll talk in later posts about how to cancel negative thoughts and how to substitute positive ones.
Prayer:
Pervasive and Immanent One, help us to be aware of our thoughts moment by moment, everyday. Amen.
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Prayers for a Busy Day
January 9, 2008 | 2 Comments
I had an upsetting phone call with a doctor’s office this morning, and am trying to find ways to calm myself and trust that all is well. Isn’t amazing how something comes across our path or into our perception just when we need it? That’s what just happened to me. I opened an old email by chance, and found in it the following prayer by St. Theresa. I couldn’t believe how 1) it was exactly what I needed in this moment and 2) how much calmer I felt after letting the prayer sink into my soul. I offer it to all of us who are having a busy, perhaps stressful day:
May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.
May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.
May you be content knowing you are a child of God.
Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.
It is there for each and everyone of us.
