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Waking up (answering the call)

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I’m often very slow to answer a call. Whether it is a call from nature or a call from God, I’m slow. I’ve just realized this. I’ve just put these things together. I’m figuring that by working on one, I’ll be working on the other at the same time. At the very least, noticing where there is a weakness means that it doesn’t have control over me.

I used to think it was just that I was slow to answer God’s call. After all, I’m bipolar. How am I supposed to know if it is God talking or if it is the disease talking? Now, bipolar disorder doesn’t usually manifest with hearing voices, but I’m just being careful. How do I know I don’t have an extra twist to my diagnosis? There are enough people who say they hear from God and it is more than obvious in their actions that they are making it up.

I think our society has done an amazing job of teaching people to question hearing from God. We joke about hearing voices in your head. Even mainstream church has taught people that hearing from God is something only prophets in the Old Testament did. It isn’t something that is done today.

I’ve long questioned what I’ve heard. I’ve long fought against it. I know things before they happen. I feel compelled to go up to total strangers and ask them if everything is OK, only to find out that it isn’t and they need help.

I’ve long fought against this, and been slow to respond. My church didn’t teach me how to recognize the voice of God, and that is the one place that should have. When I did finally come to accept what I was hearing, I was very slow in responding. I didn’t act. I feel that I’m going to get in further than I know what to do. I’m going to show up to something like a spiritual heart attack and all I have is a band-aid.

This is why I went to get training. I went to my minister three years ago and asked for training and oversight. I keep coming across people who are broken and hurting, and I want to help but I don’t know how. I want to gain the skills necessary to be helpful to them in their time of emotional crisis. I want to learn how to provide spiritual first aid. I figure training would help me to get over my hesitancy to answer God’s call. I’d know what to do. I also asked for oversight, so that others would make sure I was on the right path. Again, I didn’t want to be misled by my mind.

But my motives were questioned. I was put on hold. Three years went by before the process (the priest decided I was being called to be a deacon) even began, and then when it did I had to provide proof of when and where and by what priest and I was baptized. I had to provide proof of when and where and by what bishop I was confirmed. I had to provide certified copies of my college transcripts. I had to write my spiritual biography. I had to provide my financial records, to prove that I was a good steward of money.

This is all for a non-paying position. This is all for a job that would be over and above my real job that paid the bills, which was 40 hours a week already.

And I still hadn’t learned in that time how to discern if that voice I was hearing was God’s.

I did get to go to a Pastoral Care class, and that was helpful. On the surface, it was learning how to be a chaplain in a hospital. Deeper, it was about learning how to listen to people, really listen, in a deep way. It was about how to set aside my own fears and concerns and provide a safe place for the other person to get out their fears and concerns. It was like learning how to be a spiritual midwife.

I also got connected with a spiritual director. In order to go through the process, I had to meet with a spiritual director once a month. The fee for that is out of my own pocket. A spiritual director is kind of like a guru. She or he is trained in a divinity school usually, and the goal is intimacy with God. I’ve learned more from my spiritual director than I’ve ever learned from any minister in any church.

But I still haven’t learned how to determine what is God and what is in my head, and then to respond faster. I’m relaxing into it, however. I’m becoming my own teacher. This isn’t what I wanted, but it has to happen somehow. I’ve not gotten the help I wanted or needed from supposed experts, so I’ve gone off on my own.

It is sad that I asked for training on how to help people and I got challenged on it, and then I got delayed. I’d think that the desire to help people wouldn’t be so special that it needs a committee and assignments and paperwork. I think of all the people who are still just as lost and broken three years later, who still need help and didn’t get it because I was delayed.

I’m hurt. I’m angry. I feel deceived. I feel like I’ve been insulted and my time and energy has been wasted. I feel like I was being trained to wedge myself into the machine that is the church, to learn how to wait and respond to the bureaucracy of the church rather than how to wait and respond to the voice of God. The church would tell me that the two are the same, but you know a tree by its fruit, and something is rotten here.

I’m frustrated when I see someone who is homeless. I want to treat the cause, not the symptom. To give them a banana and a $20 bill is only going to help them right then. What about tomorrow?

There is a program in Nashville called Thistle Farms. It takes women off the streets, women who are drug abusers and prostitutes, and teaches them how to be human again. It is a two-year program, where they detox and learn job skills. While I admire the efforts of this program, I want to go backwards. I want to prevent people from becoming drug addicts and prostitutes to start off with. I want to prevent homelessness.

I don’t want to treat the symptom. I want to treat the cause. And I don’t know how.

And meanwhile I’ve left church because they not only didn’t support me but delayed me in my journey to understanding my calling. I’ve left church because the priest told me to not talk about God. I’ve left church because when I posted a blog about how far off the track I think church has gotten from the message of Jesus I got attacked instead of listened to.

I understand, a little. I understand how hard it is for members of the church, especially the priest, to accept that we are going in the wrong direction. I understand, because I felt that in church. I felt that I’ve wasted a lot of my time in church listening to somebody else’s interpretation of the Bible rather than being taught how to interpret it for myself – how to make it real, how to make it applicable to daily life.

It’s like I was given a really tasty cake every week but not taught the recipe. I want to learn how to make that cake myself. Then I want to share it with others.

That is part of what I’m trying to do here, with this blog. I’m trying to replicate what I’ve tasted, what I’ve experienced without a cookbook. I’m winging it. I think that just trying to figure it out on my own I’m getting pretty close to what it is.

I’m angry at every church I’ve ever been in for standing in my way. I’m angry at them for clipping my wings. I know it isn’t personal and it isn’t intentional. I feel like it was done to them too, so they didn’t know any better.

So in the meantime I muddle along. And I think there is something in the idea of getting faster at answering any call.

At the risk of getting too personal, I have a hard time waking up and going to the bathroom. I tend to lie there, in a mild state of discomfort, rather than getting up and just going. Or I have a tendency to be really cold and unwilling or unable to move enough to get a blanket to cover myself. I’m wondering if working on these things, these known physical needs, will help me with the rest. I’ll lie around, quietly miserable, and not do anything to help myself. I feel kind of paralyzed.

It is really hard to get disciplined when you are asleep.

It is hard enough when you are awake. It is hard to stop any bad habit and start a good one. It is hard to make time to exercise. It is hard to choose nutritious food rather than junk food. It is hard to divorce yourself from mind-numbing television shows and soul-eating relationships.

I feel that many of us are waking up, now, to ourselves, to our callings. I’m grateful. Our energy will carry over to others.

Fear is a terrible motivator. Let’s try love instead.

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Not too long ago I realized that fear was a terrible motivator for change. If you used fear as a motivator to lose weight, your fear usually ended up making you seek the very things that you didn’t need. You’d be afraid of diabetes or cancer but instead of using healthy coping mechanisms like exercise or meditation, you’d go back to smoking cigarettes or eating “comfort food” which is sadly never healthy. And then you’d be stuck in that ugly cycle again.

Love is a better motivator. You love how you feel after you eat a well-balanced meal. You love how you feel after you have a good night’s sleep. You love how you feel after you’ve had a walk around the block. Or you love your granddaughter, and you want to live long enough to see her get married and graduate from college. Or you love the book you are working on, and you want to finish writing it.

If you are working towards something, rather than running away from something, you are more likely to have good results.

I think the same thing is true with following Jesus. So many people try to sell the idea of Jesus as the boogeyman. They use him as a guilt trip, and try to drag you along for the ride.

They will say that you are going to burn in hell if you don’t follow Jesus. Or they will say that you can’t go to their church if you don’t follow him the way that they follow him. Or they say that you will be condemned by God. They are motivated out of fear. They will do what their pastor says, they won’t question anything, and they will stay within the lines of whatever proscription their church has set up for them.

I don’t know about you, but that kind of motivation never worked well for me. I’m a questioner. I’m a person who likes to ask “why”. In fact, I need to know the reason why I have to do something in order to know how to do it. It isn’t that I’m being difficult. I’m not trying to get out of whatever task I’ve been assigned. I just need to understand the “why” so I can understand the “how” and the “what”. Fortunately I had teachers who translated this as “gifted” instead of “obstinate”.

I never wanted the Jesus these fear-lead people were selling. The mean, overlord, high-school principle Jesus. The micromanaging boss Jesus. But sadly, these were the loudest people. This version of Jesus wasn’t what fit with what I read in the Gospels either. I needed a Jesus who was about love and service. I needed a Jesus who taught me how to humble myself, but not in a way that was belittling. I mean humble in a way that lets the light of God shine through, but using me as the lens. This way, I’m still there, but I’m not in the way. I become a vehicle, rather than a driver.

Consider two dogs. One is a service dog. He’s been trained to help a blind person with their daily life. He resists his own inner nature to chase the squirrel when he is crossing the street with his companion. This keeps his companion safe and headed in the right direction.

Or, alternately, there is a stray dog that got yelled at all the time by her owners. She was never trained how to behave properly, and she just gets yelled at every time she does wrong. All she hears is yelling. So this dog ran away from home and now cowers in fear all the time, never knowing when she is going to get yelled at.

The service dog has been humbled, but it is out of service and out of love. He resists his own inner nature that causes him to stray and act without thinking of the consequences. He serves another person, helping that person throughout the day. He is a guide in the truest sense. And it all started with proper training. The trainer taught the dog how to be the best dog it could be, with positive commands and encouraging desired behavior and ignoring unwanted behavior.

The other dog has been humbled, but not out of love. There is no direction or goal in that humbling. It is a scattered and destructive kind of humbling. That kind of humbling is a lessening. Sadly, that kind of humbling is what many churches want to do. They want to focus on sin rather than redemption.

If you yell at someone for doing something bad, then that is all they will be able to think about. It ends up becoming pathological. We all desire attention. But if we don’t get attention for what we do that is good, and we only get attention for what we do that is bad, even if it is negative attention, then that is what we will continue to do.

Jesus took away all the “don’ts” in the commandments. He gave us what to do. We are to love. We are to love God and our neighbors with all our heart and soul and strength and mind.

Now, personally, I’m the kind of person that needs a little more instruction than that, so I supplement my Christianity with Buddhism and Judaism, with a little bit of Hinduism and Sufism thrown in for flavor. Some Christians would cringe at that, but I hope to change their minds. We are told to love our neighbors. How can we show them love if we don’t understand anything about them? The more I learn about other faith traditions, the closer I get to God. It is all motivated out of love. God made all of us different because he needs us that way. God doesn’t want us to all be the same. That would be as boring as garden full of the same kind of flower or an orchestra with just one kind of instrument. I like daylilies and piccolos, but I also like roses and kettledrums. I think God does too.

I love the fact that I can take a yoga class (Hindu) in a YMCA (Christian), while listening to music that has Caribbean steel drums and Tibetan throat singing and Chinese hammered dulcimer. I love that I can go to a Chinese buffet and get Japanese and American food too. I love that we are waking up to the beauty of each other and celebrating our differences. I think this is part of what the Kingdom of Heaven is all about.

Renew, rebuild, revive

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Is it really possible to renew or renovate? Can you really ever make something old new again? Once it has worn out and you replace some pieces, it isn’t exactly like it was. It is a little different. The wood is a different kind. The handling is a little different. It may be “like new” but it can never truly be the same, down to the core.

When people try to reform a movement they are trying to renew it. They are trying to bring it back to what it was at the beginning. Their intentions are good, but they don’t realize it isn’t really possible. Things have changed. The times have changed. The reason for the movement that started it all off has gotten lost or forgotten.

We can’t really renew the church. We can try to reform it. We can try to rebuild it. We can try to take all the bits that work and piece them together like a jigsaw puzzle. We can take it all down and start again from scratch. Or we can muddle on like we are and try to reform it from the inside.

But one way or another, something has got to change. Too many people look at Christians like they are crazy, and with good reason. Too many Christians are filled with hate instead of love. Too many Christians think their obligation to God is filled if they sit in a pew on Sunday and then do nothing else the rest of the week.

What is the best way forward? Is it to go into the past and read the Gospels in the original Aramaic? Is it to pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit?

I write this not to attack the church, but to awaken it. I want this to work. I believe in Jesus. I believe in the work that he started and I believe that it can be brought to fruition. I believe that love can save the world.

This church, this Body of Christ, is one big dysfunctional family. It is going to be hard for some people to hear these words. Folks hate the idea that their family is broken. But pointing out that it is broken is the beginning of healing.

This is like being in recovery. When a person starts on the path of recovery, she often loses friends. Her best friends were her drinking buddies. When they see her getting sober and still enjoying life, they tend to get hateful. They rarely decide to follow her on the path. They’d rather stick with what they know, even if it is destructive and misguided, than go with something new.

So this isn’t renewal. It is revival. It is new life that I’m proposing. But to have a revival and then continue to do the same old thing won’t work. We’ve added too much to this thing we call church. The extra stuff gets in the way and slows us down. It doesn’t go where it should. We need to strip it clean.

The Lord’s Supper should be an actual meal and it needs to be shared with people who aren’t members. It needs to be shared not with the goal of making them become members. It needs to be shared because people need to be fed. There need to be no restrictions on who gets to eat.

We need to take out all the ritual and the magic show. We need to remove the hierarchy to show that everybody is equal. Everybody needs to be trained to be ministers. All of us have talents that are needed.

I remember a time that I was playing a game of volleyball with the Episcopal student group when I was in college. The priest was there with his son. His son was young and wanted to play, but because he was small his dad thought that he would get hurt, possibly by being tripped over. His son was very upset by this. I saw that he was very good at serving the ball – and I know that I’m terrible at it. I modified the game and made him the server. I explained that his Dad didn’t want him to play only because he was concerned about him getting hurt. This way he got to help out the game and not be in the way. Everybody was happy.

This is part of what we need to do. We need to look at what is essential, and change things. We need to make this work. We need to include everybody.

I’d hate to think Jesus died in vain.

Every day is the Sabbath.

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We are told to keep the Sabbath holy, but which day is that? Is it Sunday, as most Christians observe, or is it Saturday, as Jews and Seventh-Day Adventists observe, or is it Friday, as Muslims observe?

The early Christians decided to set aside Sunday to worship because that is the day that Jesus rose from the tomb, and they were getting a lot of flack from the Jews. They were convinced that Jesus was the Christ, so in their minds they were simply Jews who had found the Messiah. The Jews didn’t agree that Jesus was the fulfillment of the prophecies, so they chased them out of their synagogues. So the Sabbath got shifted a day. The Seventh-Day Adventists are Christian but follow the original Jewish Sabbath observance. Then we have Muslims, who pray every day but choose Friday as a special day of observance. It isn’t seen as a special day of rest so much as an obligatory day of prayer.

But then we have Psalm 118:24 “This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.” (Holman Christian Standard translation)

I tell you that every day is the Sabbath. Every day is a day to remember that God made you and everyone else and everything. Every day is a day to give thanks for all the many blessings of this life. Every moment of every day is a time to be filled with the knowledge and love of God. It is good to live your life full of thankfulness and awareness of God.

Why wait for only one day a week to praise God? Why wait for only one day a week to uplift your soul? Every moment can be a time of communion with God, even in the middle of a routine transaction at work. God is constantly seeking us, constantly desiring for us to be in communion with him. You don’t have to quit your job and join a monastery or a non-profit to focus your heart and mind on God. It can be done right now, right where you are.

The Future is Now. (the bud is the blossom)

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We are currently taught that Jesus will come again. We are taught to wait for the future. We aren’t taught to be thankful for the now.

Jesus tells us that there will be no more signs in this generation except the sign of Jonah. Many people take that to mean the fact that Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days, and Jesus lay in the tomb for three days.

Or did he? If he died on Friday afternoon and arose from the grave on Sunday morning as we are told, that is hardly three days. It isn’t even 48 hours. But I digress. Perhaps that is part of what is going on. I feel we are being distracted from what is really important.

What if the sign of Jonah is when people learn to be thankful for what is happening right now? Not when we are freed. Not when we are healed. Not when we reach the Promised Land. Jonah gave thanks while in the belly of the whale. While standing in the middle of a bad situation he praised God. Then he was released.

How often did Jesus tell people that their faith has saved them? Simply by seeking him out, they were healed. His healing of them was to let them know that they were forgiven their sins. We are all forgiven. We are all called to forgive. When we forgive others, we are bringing forth the same healing. Our weakness causes us to seek wholeness, and from that we gain the power to help others.

God is the great “I AM”. Not I was, or will be. Think about the idea of God being the Alpha and the Omega at the same time. Our human brains can’t really comprehend that. We can barely handle paying attention to right now, but that isn’t due to our capacity. That is due to our culture.

We are taught that happiness is to be found in the past or in the future. We are taught to focus on the “good old days” for how wonderful they were. We are taught to look forward to the future for when things will get better. The problem is that the good old days weren’t really all that good when we really think about it, because we weren’t even fully participating in them when we were living through them. We were thinking about the past and the future then too. We miss quite a bit of what is actually happening all the time. When we finally get to the future we won’t be happy then either because we are going to be doing the same thing. We’ll think we were better off “back then,” and that we will be better off “soon.”

There are a lot of modern thinkers, artists, creators, and dreamers who believe that there is a change coming. They are talking about a shift in consciousness that is about to occur. They look forward to this new era of peace and enlightenment.

I am telling you that the bud is the blossom. The seed is the fruit. I am telling you that the fact that we can see the goal means we are there.

We have changed. We are conscious of what our responsibility is. We are awake. Not all of us, no. But enough to have generated enough momentum.

We need to see how things are changing around us. How people are waking up.

We need to focus on what is going on right now that is right and good and joyful and keep doing it.

Do not give any energy to what is broken. That is what it wants. The more we focus on “if only” thoughts, the less we are focusing on building up what is going well.

Oprah says what we focus on expands. There is a lot of power in remembering this. Choose wisely.

Action and Actor

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The Dalai Lama, in his address in Louisville, Kentucky on May 19th, 2013 talked about the difference between “action and actor”. The person is not what they do. While the action may be bad, the person themselves is not. I liken this to when Jesus said “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.” Jesus was dying on the cross. It was a painful, degrading, public way to die. His disciples had left him. The soldiers were gambling for his clothing. In that horrible, embarrassing, difficult moment he showed compassion. He understood the difference between the action and the actor.

Forgive the person. They can’t help it. They would if they could.

Every single person is made in the image of God. Every single person has within them the light of God. It is through the will of God that each one of us continues to exist moment by moment, heartbeat by heartbeat.

Consider Judas. He has long been considered the bad guy in the Gospel story, but his role is essential. There are no saint medals for him, there is no special day set aside to commemorate him. But if it weren’t for Judas, that part of the prophecy would not have been fulfilled. Jesus knew that he was going to be betrayed by Judas, and forgave him. How many of us would be able to forgive someone who was going to betray us?

I have to confess that I have a soft spot in my heart for Judas. He was a pawn. God made him do what he had to do. When he came to his senses he killed himself. What a horrible thing to realize you have just sold out the person you believe to be the Messiah, the Savior, the Son of God.

Something about this story appeals to me personally. I have long wrestled with my calling and felt that it was not real. Who would listen to me, a bipolar lady who says she hears from God? God has enough crazy people who say they are His followers. The Christian faith doesn’t need any more crazy people. But if God can use someone like Judas, the most hated disciple, to bring forth what needs to happen, then who am I to argue?

We are told that if you trust in God, you know that all things work for good.

All things. Even the stuff that looks wrong and crazy and weird. Even the acts of terror. Even war. Everything is in God’s control. If we really believe that “He has the whole world in His hands,” as we teach small children to sing in Sunday school, then we need to start actually acting like we believe it.

Part of that is found in not judging anything. Not just not judging people, but not judging ourselves and events. Not deciding if things are “good” or “bad.” This is very Zen here. But it is all about accepting everything and everyone and every moment exactly as is. Without judgment, without trying to change what is, and without trying to escape.

We are told that every moment is the guru.

Every illness, every failing test score, every unwanted, unkind word, everything is our teacher.

Even Judas.

God bless us, every one.

Signs of the Holy Spirit

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We have lost touch with the Holy Spirit in many churches. Many people don’t know how to recognize when the Holy Spirit is present and active. We hear about the Pentecostal idea of speaking in tongues, of handling serpents, and of drinking poison. These are scary things. Most people think these are otherworldly actions, and they shy away from even wanting the Holy Spirit to come into their lives.

But we need the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the force that makes the whole thing go. The Spirit is the gas in the car, the fuel in the rocket. Without the Spirit, the Body will not get anywhere.

Here are the verses in question – Mark 16:17-18 “And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” And Luke 10:19 – “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.”

Handling serpents and drinking poison sound freaky, and they are. I honestly don’t think that those actions are meant to be intentionally done. I think that scripture means that if we are filled with the Spirit, nothing can harm us. That snakes and poison will not affect us. I don’t think you are supposed to test God by taking these things up. I think that what this means is that if you are filled with the Spirit, you won’t be harmed if these things were to cross your path.

I do wonder why these churches seem to focus on the less useful signs like handling snakes and drinking poison rather than the more helpful sign like healing. Wouldn’t it be amazing if their worship services were all about healing people? And I don’t mean the TV evangelist who puts on a big carnival show of bopping someone on the head and they fall to the floor. I mean real healing, deep to the core. Healing that comes from a person letting go of their fears and their doubts and their pain and their loss. Healing that comes from letting go, and letting God.

Who is to say that “speaking in tongues” isn’t the same as being fluent in another language? It seems like being able to speak to people in their own language would be helpful. It would let the other person know that they aren’t alone and they are understood. We have so much miscommunication going on right now even with people who do speak the same language. It would be great if we could access the ability to really connect with other people. We can, through the Holy Spirit. We just have to remember how to reconnect.

Now, understand that the Holy Spirit isn’t really mentioned in most churches. It is mentioned in Bible readings as a historical thing, but not as a real, right now kind of thing. We certainly aren’t taught how to call it down or how to recognize it or use it. God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit are seen as kind of real, but not really accessible or present right now, to us.

So I’m going to try to muddle through and tell you what I’ve figured out. It isn’t expert at all. It is feeling things through, step by step. But it feels right. I don’t know how to call it down, but I’m starting to recognize when it is present, so I’ll start with that.

How do you know that the Holy Spirit is present? We can’t experience it directly with our senses, but the Spirit affects things around us in unusual ways and we can notice those changes.

One of the ways the Spirit reveals itself is in unusual weather, especially water. God is within water, and a pervasive mist is a beautiful sign of the Spirit. It reveals to us that we are totally within the presence of God. We can walk through mist, and it gets in our hair and on our skin. We breathe it in. This is exactly the way that God is here on this earth. God is everything. Everything is from God. From the smallest fish in the ocean to the largest tree in the forest, all is from God. We are all condensed light from the source. If the mist is icy, it is all the more a sign. It calls attention to itself. It is unusual. It almost creates a feeling of electricity on your skin.

The Spirit also lets us know that it is present through wind and sound. Strong winds can be a sign. Bells, whistles, chirps that are unusual are of note. Odd, pleasant high-pitched sounds. Windchimes. These are all to be noted if they are sounds that are pleasant yet call attention to themselves. They aren’t background noise, but they aren’t annoying.

The Spirit also lets us know it is present through smell. The smell of incense or roses, when there are none around, is a very good indicator of the presence of the Spirit.

People who have been touched by the Holy Spirit often have a feeling of more energy. They often don’t need as much sleep as they normally do, but they still feel rested. You might not get as much sleep as you wanted, but you’ll get as much as you need. This gives you more time to do the work of the Spirit. You’ll have more time to pray for others or to volunteer.

When you notice the signs of the Holy Spirit, give thanks for it. It likes to be noticed. If you notice it, it will come more often. If you ignore it, it may pass you by and seek out someone else who can benefit from the immense power that it has to offer.

Jesus tells us in John 15:5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” We must get reconnected to the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit, otherwise the Body will die.

The Test is Rigged.

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The test is rigged.

There is no way you can win with the idea of original sin. If you say that humans are faulty from the very beginning, broken and sinful down to our very core, then there is a problem.

This mindset causes dependency. It creates in people a feeling of never being good enough. That they never will measure up.

Let’s go with the Adam and Eve story. They ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil before they even had the knowledge of good and evil. Thus they had no way of knowing that what they were doing was wrong. So it wasn’t fair to punish them.

Nothing that is from God is bad. So we were made with free will and curiosity. We are finite where God is infinite. We are mortal. We break. Things aren’t effortless for us. We need a little help. We can’t understand and follow all the rules.

So then Jesus comes along and tells us to love. He breaks down all the rules into two – love God, and love your neighbor. Seems simple enough. Then he pays our tab for us – our debt of sin is paid. Some people need to hear that. But perhaps what he really was doing was just saying that we are fine the way we are. We aren’t perfect and we never will be. We can’t ever win, because the game is fixed. He’s letting us know that we are ok. We aren’t to blame for our nature, because it is just the way we are.

Now would be the time that somebody will quote from Paul or point out that “whoever is without sin” gets to cast the first stone. Nobody gets to throw stones. Because throwing stones isn’t showing love. Thinking you are better than somebody else isn’t being loving.

Rather than load people up with guilt about their sin by making them say the confession every week, why not turn it around and teach people different ways they can be more loving and compassionate?

Every week, every day, every minute, we aren’t going to measure up to the idea of being perfect. We never will be perfect. We can’t be. That isn’t human nature. Focusing on our sin keeps us pointed in the wrong direction. We need to learn how to be better at what we can do, rather than on what we can’t do.

We say that Jesus paid for all our sins. So why do we keep pulling them out and focusing on them? This seems pathological.

How to pray – it isn’t the words or the ritual. It is a feeling.

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Prayer is communicating with God. God wants to hear from us, and for us to hear from him. But how do we do this?

Communicating with God is real. Everyone can do it. It isn’t for the chosen few. Not everybody can do it easily, but everybody can learn how. Hearing from God isn’t as easy as picking up the phone. It isn’t the same as turning on the television. But it is a skill that you can learn.

Consider a marathon runner. She doesn’t wake up one day and start running 26 miles. She may not even like to run to start off with. But she hears about a marathon and she thinks about it. She finally decides to start. She trains. She gets better. She may walk more than run at first. First it is a mile run around the block. Then two. Then five. It can take a long time and many setbacks and blisters to get up to 26 miles, but then one day she is there.

This is also true of hearing from God. It requires practice and effort and persistence.

First, it is important for you to know that God loves you. God made you. You are needed and part of God’s plan. This is why you were made. The fact that you are alive is proof that God needs and loves you. Right now. As you are. Warts and all. You may not feel worthy of God, but God thinks otherwise. So God wants to hear from you. God wants to connect with you. This is true communion, or union-with.

The book “The Isaiah Effect” by Gregg Braden says something very interesting about prayer. It says that prayer isn’t something you do, it is something you feel inside your body. This is very important. This totally turns our Western idea of prayer upside down.

It isn’t the vehicle that is the focus. It isn’t the how-to. It is the destination that is important. You have to get to that feeling in your body that indicates you are in the right spot. Prayer is a feeling, not a ritual.

Prayer isn’t the candle or the words or the gestures. It is the connection with God that is produced when you use those things, or anything else that helps you get there. The candle or the words or the gestures are like a car that you get in to go visit a friend. Getting to your friend is the most important part, not how you get there. Perhaps the car breaks down and you have to walk. That is fine. You got there. Don’t focus on the car.

But because we are physical beings, we often need props to help us. Just remember that the prayer isn’t the props.

C.S. Lewis says “You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” Our bodies need reminders of our souls. I’ve written before about how I use prayer bracelets, tattoos, painted toenails, and going barefoot as reminders. There are many different ways to remind you to pray and nourish your soul with a connection with God.

Prayer does not have to be passive. It doesn’t have to be sitting in a chair with your hands in front of you saying a prayer that somebody else wrote. It can be active. There are probably as many different ways of praying as there are people. Painting, walking, singing, doodling, meditation, yoga practice can all be used as forms of prayer, for instance. Compassion in action is also good. Volunteering is a form of prayer.

How often should you pray? If you are Muslim, you are to pray five times a day. Some people pray before every meal. If you are Jewish, you are to give thanks to God at least 100 times a day. All of these practices are ways to remind you to pray. Constantly praying is constantly being in communion with God. The more you pray, the better the connection gets between you and God.

In order to hear from God, you have to put yourself in a place where you can hear from God. It is kind of like you want to get a phone call from a friend, but you don’t realize that your phone is turned off because you didn’t pay the bill. You’ll never hear from your friend with that kind of connection.

This is attributed to Saint Francis – “Pray constantly, and if you must, use words.” Prayer doesn’t have to be words, but it can. Part of my goal here is to open your mind up about what prayer is. It doesn’t have to be what you think it is. Trying other ways can be helpful.

Do you use a prayer book, or not? Do you find it helpful or stiff and canned? Jesus tells us that we are not to mutter the same words over and over again, but to pray from our hearts. We learn this in Matthew 6:7 “And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words.” (New American Standard Bible) But sometimes that is hard because we don’t know what to say. Then there is this helpful verse from Romans 8:26 “And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words.” (New Living Translation)

So you don’t have to use a prayer book. God knows what you want to say. But if you feel you need a prayer book, be sure to read every word carefully and feel them, so that the prayer becomes your own. It isn’t the words that get you there, but the feeling that happens when you read the words. A friend told me a Jewish story about a little boy who didn’t know what how to pray so he just recited the alphabet and let God pick out all the right letters. That works too – but again, it isn’t the letters. It is the feeling you get when you are there, talking to God.

Many different faiths use prayer beads. You can study how they use them, or you can make up your own ritual. They can be used to center you and focus you. Just handling beads can be very calming and centering.

When you pray, remember the feeling you get if you ask for something. Then see if your prayer is answered. Compare the feeling with the result. Journaling can help you keep track of the results. This is a way to learn how God is talking to you. God always answers prayers, but they aren’t always “yes”. With practice, you can learn to “hear” the “yes” from the “no” from the “not right now”. I often “hear” the reply as a feeling, rather than a word. This is often the first way that we hear from God, as feeling.

When I pray for a specific intention, I get a feeling of ease when the prayer is going to be answered as a “yes”. I get a feeling of resistance when it is a “no”. It took a while to learn the subtle difference of feeling between the two. It isn’t as easy as “this is hot” and “this is cold” – it was far more subtle. But it is there. It just takes practice to sort out where and how the feeling feels to you.

I think it is essential to always be ok with the idea that you aren’t in charge. Sometimes it is best you don’t get what you prayed for. God is not your waiter. You don’t always get to have it your way.

God can use anything as a way to answer. You can “hear” God all around you. Nothing is a coincidence. We are like fish who are unaware of water. We are surrounded by God, as everything is from God.

It is perfectly ok to pray for the ability to pray. It is OK to ask God for help in how to pray. Just like in the story of the prodigal son, when the son started back towards his Dad, his Dad saw him and went running to meet him. God wants us to pray, to connect with him. He’ll make up the difference in distance between us.

You’ll get stronger the more you do it. So pray constantly. Be patient with yourself if you slack off and get out of your routine. That is normal. Just start doing it again. Nobody is consistent at their prayers. But the more you pray, the better you’ll get at it, and the more you will connect with God.

Read the Bible, and pray beforehand for the Holy Spirit to help you understand. The Bible is the Word of God. If you want to hear from God, it is a good idea to start off with a known good. This way when you get to the point that God is talking to you in words, you’ll be able to measure up and know if it is God talking and not just your imagination.

Read the prayers of other faiths. There might be something that helps. Like buying a one-size fits all suit, sometimes prayer life needs to be altered and adjusted. I’ve found a lot of comfort in reading about other faith systems. There is a lot in Buddhism for instance that helps to inform my Christianity. I’m enjoying a podcast that is all Torah study as well.

Remember to make time for prayer. Turn off the television. Turn off the iPod. We fill our heads with a lot of noise. How can God get a word in edgewise if we are so noisy all the time?

Consider getting a spiritual director. A spiritual director can be a priest or minister, but doesn’t necessarily have to be one. She or he is trained to help you achieve intimacy with God. I consider such a person to be like a guru, but for Western faiths. I’ve learned more from my spiritual director than I’ve ever learned from any minister.

I’ll leave you with a little poem.

Make your life into a prayer,
and everything you do will be a love letter to God.
And God will answer back, I love you, I love you, I love you
from every rock and rainbow,
from every smile from every stranger.

It isn’t here.

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It isn’t about the tree that Buddha sat under.
You won’t find enlightenment no matter how long you sit there.
Go find your own tree.
Or a rock.
Or an island
in the middle of a freeway.

The birthplace of Jesus shouldn’t be a pilgrimage site.
It isn’t the place. The place doesn’t matter.
That it happened is what matters.

Don’t charge admission to truth.
Don’t sell tickets to joy.

Where any enlightened person walked or lived or taught should be forgotten.
You can’t learn from ghosts in places.

Follow who they followed, back to the root.
Who is at the beginning?
Who is at the source?

You don’t have to go to the holy land.
Black Elk tells us that
the holy land is everywhere.

Right here, right where you are,
put a plaque. Memorialize it for future generations.

Have it say “I am here”

And then burn it down.