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Praying using an image.

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Praying using an icon or a statue is exactly the same as using Skype to talk to God. It is a way of communicating with God.

Statues or icons are like telephones. When you want to call someone, you can pick up your telephone and dial their number. Then you can communicate with them. The telephone is simply a tool that you can use to reach them. Praying using an icon or an image of a God is exactly the same thing.

When Hindus pray using an image of the deity, they don’t believe that the deity is that image. They aren’t worshipping the image. They are worshipping what is inside that image. The image is a way of receiving the divinity. They believe that when they pray, God sets up residence inside that statue during that time, and that they can see and be seen by God. When the prayers are over, God departs from the statue.

Icons, used in Catholic and Orthodox traditions, are simply “windows” to the divine. The divine isn’t there, but it can be used as an interface. It is an access point.

Now, God is always present. God can be accessed anytime, anyplace, and anywhere, by anyone. But we humans can’t really handle that. That is a little too much for us. So we can set aside time to be with God. This makes it more manageable for us, and more likely we will listen to the message.

God can speak to us through dreams or burning bushes like was done with people in the past, or in any number of other ways. God is constantly trying to get our attention. The problem is that we aren’t always ready to receive. We may brush it off as coincidence, or an accident, or just simply not meaningful. We aren’t ready to receive the message when it comes.

Using an icon or an image of an aspect of God puts it on our terms and on our time. We choose the time we approach, and how we would like to interact with God. This makes the infinite more human-sized. We can then enter into the mental space ready to receive whatever message we are given.

What does it mean to pray to a saint?

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Praying to a saint isn’t like praying to God. If you are praying to a saint, you don’t think that saint is God. It is more like you are getting a friend to help you out.

Say God is the CEO of the place you work. You are a bit intimidated by him. You need to ask a favor, but you don’t think that he will listen. You don’t think that you are high enough up on the institutional pecking order to talk to him. Maybe you can’t get an appointment. But maybe you don’t even try, because you just don’t think he’ll make time for you.

So you talk to your manager, or his secretary. You ask them to carry the message to the CEO. You ask them because you really need this favor done, or you really need to get this message across. Perhaps something isn’t going right in the organization. Perhaps you see a way that it can be done better. If only this information can get to the CEO, then some action can take place.

You don’t have the authority to make a big sweeping change, but the CEO does. So you let someone know, and they talk to the CEO. Then the change happens (or not).

Because not every time you pray to God does the change happen. Sometimes it isn’t a good thing to ask for. God has the whole picture in mind. So God knows what is best. We can put in our opinions in the opinion box, but we have to trust that what happens is what is supposed to happen.

Now, ideally, you’d go straight to God. Or, you can go to Jesus, who will go to God. But Jesus removed all barriers between us and God. We don’t need intermediaries. We don’t need priests or ministers. We don’t need saints.

Sometimes we feel like we do, in the same way that we feel like we need training wheels when we start to learn how to ride a bike. But what happens when we learn how to ride, and we still use the training wheels? We don’t get as strong as we should.

Jesus makes us worthy to stand before God. When the veil before the Holy of Holies in the Temple was torn in two at Jesus’ death, all barriers between us and God were removed. By his blood we are cleansed, and by his stripes we are healed.

But this is a very human thing. People were constantly throwing themselves facedown when an agent of God (read – an angel) appears to them. They were constantly saying they aren’t worthy. There is nothing in the Bible that says they aren’t worthy, but they keep saying they are. We still do.

So we have saints, and priests, and ministers. We have intermediaries, and go-betweens.

And the message still gets through.

God wants to hear from us, no matter how. Keep praying. Keep asking. Keep knocking. Keep seeking. Keep praying. If you have to use saints, fine. You aren’t praying to them, so much as with them. They are like spiritual friends. But keep praying. God is listening.

Prayer isn’t about changing what IS.

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I was just asked to pray for a man’s wife. She is going to have a scan today to see how her cancer is. He wanted me to pray that her cancer is gone. Prayers don’t work like this. Sure, I can pray that they find everything that needs to be found, and that the machine is working correctly. But I can’t pray that her cancer has disappeared. That is a different thing altogether.

Say your friend tells you that she is pregnant and she asks you to pray that it is a girl. This is too late. The gender of the child is already determined at this point. The time to pray for a specific gender was before she got pregnant.

Say you are driving home and you see smoke from a fire. You start praying “God, don’t let that be my house!” Too late. The fire is already happening. It won’t jump from your house to another. If it did, that would mean that your neighbor’s house would be on fire, and that wouldn’t be fair. But in reality, you just have to accept that whatever house that is on fire is on fire. You can’t change it. You can pray that everybody gets out ok, but even then you need to understand that isn’t up to you either.

Sometimes people are meant to die young. Sometimes bad things happen. Our goal with prayer is to learn how to accept the reality of the situation.

The more we try to define things as bad or good, the more resistance we are bringing to the situation, and the more attachment.

Our goal is to be like a surfer. Ride the waves, and go with them. You can’t control them. If you work with them you are safe. If you work against them you will get hurt. Or die.

Prayer isn’t about getting what you want. It is about wanting what you get.

A lot of prayer isn’t about changing God’s mind. It is about us coming to grips with God’s will. It is about us learning to accept what IS.

God is in charge. Our job is to understand that. If we believe that God is good, we have to accept that whatever happens is what God needs to happen. We may not like it at the time. It may be pretty awful in fact. But the more we resist, the harder it gets.

There was one time I was in a river raft. My boyfriend at the time was a guide. He had taken many tours of that river and knew it well. We were with a few other friends on a private trip down the river. He got to a certain area and had us “surf” for a bit. The water started to come into the boat a little. I started to freak out and tried to climb out of the raft. He held me in the raft, pushing down on my shoulders. I freaked out more. We got out of it fine and he explained it to me. He knew what he was doing. It had to happen that way. If I’d gotten out, I would have been pulled away by the current, or worse, pulled under the raft. My resisting was making it worse for me.

Ideally, he would have explained all this before we got to that area, but he didn’t think to. Also, he didn’t know exactly the way the water (or I) was going to behave. But he knew what he was doing, even if I didn’t. He was the expert, and I wasn’t.

God is the expert, and we aren’t. God is in charge, and we aren’t. God knows what is going to happen, and we don’t. God is the Alpha and the Omega – the beginning and the end. God is everything, all at once. We can’t even begin to comprehend that. God’s will is so much more vast than we can ever know.

Prayer puts us in a state of being receptive to the will of God.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t ask God to change His mind. But be aware that whatever happens after that is what is supposed to happen. God is not your waiter. You don’t get to “have it your way.”

A pain in the gut.

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A regular patron came in recently. Well, by regular I don’t mean he is normal. I mean he has been in often for the past several years. His paranoia has gone to new heights. He makes my former boss’ end of the world preparations look like child’s play.

He has a thirty year supply of seeds. He is raising his own food, and not just vegetables. He is raising sheep and goats and chickens. He even has a beehive.

Or at least I think he has all this. He might just be preparing to be prepared. It is in the works, at least.

He believes that you can’t trust anyone or anything. He believes that the government is out to get us all. He might be right. Who knows?

I’ve noticed that all these preppers don’t seem like happy people. Somehow all of this stocking and storing, this training and testing, doesn’t seem to be making them content. Somehow, instead of getting a sense of calm that they have everything under control and their lives are free from worry about other people and their perceived lack, they seem even more wound up.

I understand some of their desire to fend for themselves and not trust other people. When I was in college, we had to do group assignments. The group had to do the research and work on a project. Rarely did I get to pick the group I was in. I usually ended up doing all the work because I didn’t trust the competency of my fellow students. I didn’t want my grade to be adversely affected by their slack.

So the preppers are doing the same thing, but instead of their grades being affected, it is their lives. They think everything is going to hit the fan and it will be every man for himself.

I can handle only so much of this kind of talk. He has shared some of his theories with me in the past about how things are going to go south and I always feel physically bad afterwards.

I want to be present for people. I also want to be open. I want to study them as well. Sometimes I have to allow myself into situations that are uncomfortable for me in order to personally grow and learn.

But this time was different. Perhaps it was a cumulative effect. Last night’s rambles weren’t especially paranoid, but somehow I was affected adversely.

I started to feel a pain in my stomach shortly after our conversation ended. Now, it might help to know that I have a hernia. I thought it was acting up. I got it when my Mom was dying and I had to lift her from her bed to get her to the bathroom. I remember the feeling of my muscles in my abdomen snapping from the strain. She wasn’t especially heavy her whole life, and she was even less so then because of the chemotherapy, but I wasn’t trained for that kind of lifting.

I’ve strengthened my abdomen quite a bit in the past few years with water aerobics and yoga, but that kind of injury never fully heals. I’ve learned that if I do a forward fold it usually helps.

Not so in this case. I waited a bit, and then went to the bathroom. While sitting there, I thought about this pain. It kind of reminded me of the pain I had when I was in my first year of college. That wasn’t a pain from any physical illness, but it manifested in a physical way. It was a pain from stress, from anxiety, from fear. It was the pain of being too far away from everything I knew and facing a whole lot more of the unknown.

Then, I went to the student health services and they, in their ignorance, gave me an anti nausea pill that knocked me out for half a day.

I didn’t want to be unconscious, but I also didn’t want to be in pain.

So I prayed. What do I do, Lord?

The answer? A hard exhale. Just like in yoga class, the ocean sounding breath. Just like one teacher says “Fog up that invisible mirror in front of your beautiful face.” So I did it. Huhhhh.

And I felt instantly better. I did it a few more times and the pain was all gone.

And now I think I’ll have to tell that patron that I can’t listen to his prepper paranoia any more.

Just like finding out that I am allergic to a certain food and I no longer eat it because it makes me sick, I have to do the same with people and ideas. If they make me sick, don’t let them in my head.

But it is also good to know that the answer to every question is just a question away.

Half prayer

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I was sitting at the end of my neighborhood, waiting for the light to change. It is a long light, and that intersection marks a change in the traffic from light to heavy.

I have started to use that time to pray.

This time I was filling up the space with my words, and this suddenly came to me. Be still. Let God fill you with God’s words instead.

Prayer isn’t just about talking to God. It is about letting God talk to you.

In my desire to pray, I was doing it all wrong. Or rather, I was doing it only half right.

An imperfect storm

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I had a dream that Jesus was giving a talk in a high school. It wasn’t a lecture for the students or staff – the group was just using a meeting room in the school because they didn’t have a permanent place to meet.

I went wandering away from the lecture for a bit and found a student who said he was afraid of a particular area in the building. He said it was haunted.

We went to look, and we found a lot of other students and staff members transfixed, staring at this big swirling black cloud that was in a stairwell. It sure looked angry. I thought about calling Jesus to come calm it or to cast it out. Then time shifted a bit and I realized that Jesus wasn’t there.

But then I realized that I was, and because I’ve accepted Jesus into my heart, he is there, in me. This is true for all believers. I also remembered that Jesus said to his disciples in Mark 16:17-18 that nothing can harm us, not poison, not snakes. I remember also in Mark 9:28-29 Jesus teaching his disciples to cast demons out.

Somehow, the idea of angry spirits and the weather got merged. We have a lot of tornadoes and severe thunderstorms in the South, especially this time of year. We have a lot of casualties and property damage from them.

And I remember the story in Mark 4:35-41 where Jesus calmed a huge storm at sea, saying “Silence! Be still!” to it. I also remember the story of Elijah and the storm, from 1 Kings 19:11 where we learned that the Lord was not in the storm. Elijah held his ground and was not afraid.

What is a storm but energy? It isn’t a fluke of nature. It isn’t just something that happens. I think there is a reason I’m seeing the idea of a storm and of demons. Bad storms certainly are very destructive and harmful. We need rain, certainly. We don’t need 30-50 MPH winds. We don’t need tornadoes.

Why not think of a storm as a demon – and cast it out? Tell it to be still?

Answer – on intercessory prayer.

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People often ask me to pray for them. Sometimes I hear an answer back of what they are supposed to do – some blockage to address, some wrong to be righted. They rarely want to hear this.

Perhaps they think their obligation is over just by asking for prayers. While it is important to ask for help, it is also important to be able to receive it. Receiving it in this case means listening to the answer to the prayer.

I think a lot of this resistance comes from the modern church structure. We are taught to be passive in our faith. We are receivers, not doers. Things happen to us. We don’t make things happen.

We are taught this when we are expected to be silent or to recite from a script during our worship service. This is the model we are given in the modern church service for how we are to interact with God, and how God interacts with us. Sit down. Shut up.

But this pattern is not God’s pattern. This pattern ensures docility and compliance. The Bible is filled with the exact opposite pattern. Our role models are active and willing participants in doing God’s will.

We are the hands and feet of God. When someone says “How could God let this happen?” the question really should be “How could we, the people of God, let this happen?”

So it makes sense that people don’t know how to react when I tell them the answer that I’ve heard. Sometimes it doesn’t make sense to me even. Rarely is it something simple or obvious. This is in part how I know the answer isn’t from me. I couldn’t have made it up because I don’t even understand it.

Sometimes the answer is to do something. Sometimes it is to stop doing something. And I don’t always get an answer. That is part of it too. Sometimes we just have to live in the middle, in the not knowing, and have faith that God has it all under control.

When I pray for myself or someone else I’m often asking for a change in a situation. Sometimes I’m asking for a boon or a favor. But just like if I was asking for a boon from an earthly king, I have to understand that it might not be just, and it might not be right.

With an earthly king, the request may not be in his power. With our heavenly king, it is always in God’s power. The issue is that we can’t see things the way that God sees them. God knows the history of everything even before it happens. This is what God means by the title “the Alpha and the Omega.” Time means nothing to God.

So sometimes what we are asking for isn’t really what we want, or need. We think it is, but we don’t have the whole picture.

When we pray, sometimes God needs us to do our part to make the result happen. We should welcome this work as an opportunity to serve God. So when you hear an answer, whether you hear it yourself or it comes by way of an intercessor, see it as a blessing.

Poem – Message

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It’s like God
stops you on the street
to hand you a message
and your hands are full
and your pockets are full
and you are late
to a doctor’s appointment.

But it is God
so you want to take the message
so you put down your plastic sacks
because you went shopping
on the way to the doctor’s office
and the lines were long
and that is why you are late

and now your hands are free
but your coat is hard to unbutton
and you want to unbutton it
because you want to put the message
in the
inner pocket
of the coat
so it will be safe
and not get smudged
or lost.

I’d rather not
be like this.

I’d rather be checking in
all the time,
saying
Here I am God.
Do you have any messages
for me?
All the time
not just accidentally
not leaving it so God
has to tackle me
or bump
into me
on the street
for me to
stop
long enough to give God my time.

What if everything is your crystal ball?

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Before you search for wisdom in any fortune-telling device – Ouija board, runes, tarot cards, or a crystal ball, you need to put yourself in a receptive space. You may have a ritual that you do. Perhaps you lay out a special tablecloth or piece of embroidery. Then perhaps you add a candle or special stones that have significance to you. Maybe you will light some incense. There are often a couple of deep breaths involved, and perhaps a specific prayer. Then you are in a space inside your head when you are willing to listen to what the universe is trying to tell you.

From “The Isaiah Effect” by Gregg Braden, I’ve learned that prayer isn’t the words. Prayer is the feeling you get from the words. Some people need a lot of set-up and props to get to that feeling. In the Episcopal Church there is a prayer that I like that helps remind me that it is time to focus on God. It is called the Collect for Purity, and it is said very early on in the worship service. Here it is –

“Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.” (From “The Book of Common Prayer” – page 355)

These words, combined with being in a sacred space and seeing the vestments and banners, help me to focus and center my soul on what is about to happen. It helps to put me in a place where I am open God.

Well, at least it used to, until I walked away from church, or, rather, I realized that we collectively were doing church wrong and the priest removed me from my position of authority in that parish. She felt threatened, and rightly so. The more she thinks about it, the more she’ll realize that she’s out of a job. But I digress. I’ve talked about this a lot already.

Even though I don’t go to church, I find I still need to be in that place in my head. I can’t just go from secular to sacred instantly. There needs to be a transition point. There needs to be something like an airlock, or a mudroom, or a vestibule. Something that transitions you from Here to There.

I think part of that is to constantly be in a state of prayer, to constantly be searching for God. I think part of it is seeing that there is no difference between secular and sacred – that everything and everyone and every moment is sacred. It is us who have gone away from God – not the other way around.

I often pray for guidance before reading the Bible. Sometimes I’ll have a specific issue that was concerning me. Should I keep my job? What direction should I go in? How do I deal with this person who is hateful to me? I would simply ask that God speak to me through those words. Perhaps I was echoing Samuel when he said “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” (1 Samuel 3:10) I would open the Bible and find a section. Sometimes it would be a section I was already working in. Sometimes it would be a new section. Right now I’m in three sections – Nehemiah, Isaiah, and Luke. Tomorrow it might be a Psalm or Leviticus. It doesn’t seem to matter what the section is. It matters that I’m open to what God is trying to tell me.

I’ve started to understand that God is constantly trying to tell us things. God is constantly seeking us. God constantly wants to show us how much we are loved and how important we are. So I’ve started to “Pray without ceasing” as Saint Francis says. I’ve started to try to be in that place all the time. Before work. Before reading any book. Before driving my car. Before creating jewelry. Before writing.

One new thing I’ve been doing is to pray while taking my shower. When I wash my face I’ll pray this way – while touching my eyes I’ll say “May I see You,” then I move to my ears – “may I hear You,” and then I’ll touch my mouth “and constantly speak Your praise.”

When I find I’ve fallen out of that place where I’m open and receptive, I pray again. I want to constantly be in a place where I’m seeking God, and open to what God wants me to learn and do and be.

Often I fall out of that place. I have reminders everywhere. I have prayer bracelets that remind me of specific intentions. I have tattoos to remind me of the many answered prayers that I’ve been blessed with. I have reminders in my locker at work. Instead of getting angry that I’ve fallen, I’m trying to be thankful. I’m trying to see it as a further chance to return to God.

I think prayer is just like exercise – the more you do it, the better you get. The goal with more prayer isn’t to run a triathlon, however. It is to better walk with God. The closer we can walk, the better we can do what God wants us to do.

Rest period.

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You know you need to take time off when you start to seriously contemplate calling in sick and then you realize that it is your day off. I’ve crammed so much stuff into my days off that they aren’t days off. I still do just as much work – I just don’t get paid for it.

Now, I’ve come to realize how important momentum is for me. If I laze about all day, then I tend to keep doing that. I’m a binge lazy person. Doing nothing is the same to me as eating sugar is to some people. Once I start, I can’t stop.

Well, I can, but I don’t want to.

I think the trick is to set limits. I have to allow myself time to do nothing. From this time to this – say from 12 until 3, I’ll do nothing on my day off. Nothing at all. Lay on the couch and read, or make jewelry. Something for me. Something fun. That sounds like a good plan. Maybe I’ll do it someday.

Right now, I’m playing a bit of catch up. I decided to skip going to my yoga class. The teacher is more challenging than the first one, but she needs to change things up to keep it interesting. I really get bored if nothing changes. I need to be challenged. I need to try different moves. If nothing else, I need to hear different music. I’d like to think that a yoga class with a real live person is different than watching a videorecorded one.

However, even though it is dull sometimes, I need the discipline of getting up and going. I need to be out of the house early on a Friday, otherwise I’ll stay in my pajamas all afternoon long and not get any of my chores done. And then I start to think – is that so bad? Is it bad to rest? Is it bad to actually take a day off?

It is for me. I feel guilty if I rest.

I have a bad relationship with rest. I really am starting to like the idea of the Jewish Sabbath. One whole day where you are commanded to do as much nothing as possible. You can’t feel guilty about doing nothing – you are supposed to do nothing. You are supposed to feel guilty if you do something. You are to rest and recharge and refuel.

We just don’t have that in Christian culture. Sure, we sometimes refer to the day we go to church as the Sabbath, but we don’t treat it with anywhere near the preparation and seriousness the Jews approach their Sabbath. And I think we suffer because of it. Imagine how cool it would be to have a holiday once a week. Once a week you take a vacation from the world, and enter into a special time where there is nothing you have to do except rest. Sounds just like heaven to me.

I have a bit of the “get things done” feeling in part because my parents died young. I feel like it is important to not waste time. I see how quickly time slips by and then you are either too old to do something with your life, or too feeble. Some things take time to get going. Better start now.

But then I am starting to understand that I need to rest too. There are rest periods build into yoga. It isn’t go go go. The human body just can’t handle that. The space between the notes is what makes the music, so says Claude Debussy.

This is why I’ve signed up for another retreat. It is a time of silence and rest. All my physical needs are taken care of. There is a place to sleep, and food is prepared for me. All I have to do is show up and be present. The only electronic device I use is my Kindle – and I use it to write. I don’t check email. I don’t check Facebook. The only input is from God.

I think that I need to do this more than just four times a year. I need to set aside a chunk of time to just listen, and by that I don’t mean little snatches of time. The more I pack into my day, the more God can’t get a word in edgewise. I pray throughout the day, but it all seems to be in five minute pieces.

Sure, bills have to be paid. Sure, the housework needs to be done. But if I don’t take time off, time to just be, then I’ve become something other than a human. I’ve become an automaton, a robot, a thing. I’ve become a human doing, and not a human being.

So I still wrestle with this. I feel like I’m in overeaters anonymous. Having a bad relationship with food isn’t like having a drug addiction – you have to eat food. You can give up heroin. You can’t give up food. So how to you create a healthy relationship with something you have to have in your life? I think boundaries are part of it. I can allow this, but not this. I can allow this time to be work and this time to be free. I think it is important to self-police too. I think it is important to not allow my free time to become work time.

I’ll report back on whether this works or not. As of right now, I’m still in my jammies and it is 1:30. I think I have to wrench myself free and go out for a bit, just so I can say I’ve done something. My head gets a little fuzzy with too much nothing.