LENT ON THE ROAD OF LIFE

In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth.

       Welcome back. Let’s think about Lent.

        I remember when I experienced the spirit of Lent.  In 1982, I decided to burn off my exorbitant youthful energy by riding my bicycle from Chattanooga to San Francisco where Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary awaited me.  The plan was to survive with as little means as possible and know only God.

I plotted my route with an Atlas, sold everything I had, and said “good-bye” to my mother and brother where a state highway crossed into Alabama. 

I carried a sleeping bag, a tent, some clothes, and seventy-one books.  Sixty-six of those books were included in my Bible.

I slept under bridges, in parks, and in playgrounds.  Often, I met people who opened their homes and hearts to me after I told them I was a preacher pedaling to seminary. 

When I rode into Bonham, Texas the onset of reality weighed heavily upon me.  Money was low.  Existential gas was lower.  My legs hurt from swollen welts where friction caused by constant pedaling burned between skin and seat leather.  My planning had proved more impetuous than prudent. 

I considered staying in Bonham.  I could write to the seminary and postpone my first semester.  I decided to seek wisdom.

I biked to Bonham First Baptist.  I introduced myself to the youth pastor who happened to be there that day.  I told him who I was and where I was going. 

Without hesitation, he arranged for me to see a doctor who gave me some medication.  That night, I slept on the floor in the church fellowship hall. 

The youth pastor urged me to go to seminary on a bus rather than remain.  The church purchased my bus ticket and the packing boxes for my bicycle, my sleeping bag, my clothes, and five books.  I kept the other sixty-six books on my lap as the bus carried me through boundless Texas onward to San Francisco. 

I sent a letter of thanks to the church.  Eventually, I sent money for the bus ticket.  The youth pastor returned the money with a very kind letter that said he and the congregation were happy I had arrived safely. 

That adventure happened over thirty-five years ago.  I carry the memory with me always.  I seek to live its meaning to whomever I can. 

Thus, one summer in 1982, I fasted and experienced who our God of love is.

Blessings...

HOW NOT TO DO LENT

In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth.

        Welcome back. Let’s think about how not to do Lent.

        To some, rituals are a divine calculus that reckons divine favor from above. 

Such is the case when we consider Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Cask of Amontillado.”  Montresor narrates how he murdered his unfortunate friend, Fortunato.  The homicide occurs during Lent. 

The motive is revenge for an unspecified insult.  The aim is to murder Fortunato without being punished.  We learn at the end of the story that fifty years have passed.  Montresor’s dastardly deed was never found out.  He avoided the punishment of men.

Indeed, men were not the only ones on Montresor’s mind.  He also murdered Fortunato in such a way that he would avoid God’s punishment.  Therefore, on the night of Fat Tuesday, Montresor lured Fortunato away from a party to the place where the murder would be committed.  He could spend Ash Wednesday confessing and the rest of Lent fasting. Purgatory, not Hell, would be the worst punishment he might expect for his wickedness.

Since his narration occurs fifty years after the murder, it serves as a confession near the end of his life.  His confession might count as more sauce for his salvation depending on the garnishment of his penance, if there ever was one.

To his discredit, Montresor mistook shadow for light.  He missed a thin place as he put Fortunato into a dark place.

As we live we experience what Celtic Christians called “thin places,” where God’s being shines forth as a slight layer of presence in the vast space and time of our lives.  Worship, prayer, and liturgical seasons take us to those thin places where forgiveness, love, and grace are made manifest.

There is no divine calculus underlying grace, forgiveness, and love.  No menial or mortal sin we may commit is factored down to zero because we followed a formula. 

The only reality there is, and ever has been, is that God, in whom we move and have our being, loves us.

Montresor serves as a lesson for any who would coerce or cajole in darkness what shines in the grace of faith.  Had he confessed his revenge, and fasted from his pride, then he might have sought for Fortunato his forgiveness rather than his immolation.

Blessings...

PRAYER THAT CONTEMPLATES

In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth.

Welcome back. Let's think about prayer.

I have been writing about the five kinds of verbal prayer. Now, I would like to turn to contemplative prayer. 

Contemplative prayer can be as relaxing as it gets. You open your mind to God, or if you prefer another metaphor, your heart. It is a technique that can be practiced daily.

The aim is to practice internal silence in order to listen to God. Now, I have a problem with that. I seek in my own contemplation to hear silence. I wait for peace and clarity to be woven within me. I do not wait for a voice, but a presence.

I mistrust anyone who says they hear God's voice, including myself. God has already spoken to us through Jesus when we were commanded to love. God will not tell me what to eat for breakfast or what lottery number I should pick or what college I should attend.

Whatever language I hear, be it from God, the only word it will say to me is, "Love."  I shall take that as God’s ultimate imperative.

Also, I do not come before God as a guilt infested sinner whom God abhors (Jonathan Edwards). I am God's child who loves God. I come to God to be with One who loves me. So I do not have to agonize in prayer.

Indeed, the theology of agony seems sick to me. If life strikes me down, and I am in agony over existential pain and suffering...well, that's another thing. I do not have to cast myself down and erupt into a volcano of agony before God just because I believe God requires that sort of groveling.

Let me repeat, life needs not my help to evoke pain and suffering.

Remember, God is more humane than humans. Were I a sick bastard whose ego needed others to grovel before me, I would not be in any way like our God of love.

That being written, I do wait for peace and clarity to arise. Both often come, and more easily, for us all when we are more practiced in contemplation.

There are different ways to practice contemplation. In a noisy world, I find myself compartmentalizing my inner self away from the world's noise. I can be in a crowded room and focus my thoughts from without to within just by searching in my mind the places where silence dwells.

Also, saying a word over and over aids contemplation. Any word that evokes spiritual thoughts will do. I want to move beyond words so I listen to my breathing. I also count my breaths at first until I move beyond air to spirit. As I do this I imagine myself in the presence of God, sitting and waiting for God's peace and kindness to fill me.

These words I use are metaphors. They evoke images. I can just as well use the word "spirit" to indicate God's presence filling me, or "love."  Some people imagine Jesus, Mary, or a saint.

I highly recommend Thomas Keating's article "The Method of Centering Prayer.”  I learned about centering prayer from Marcus Borg's book The Heart of Christianity.

If you are interested, go to Google and type in Keating’s name and article title. There should be several links about centering prayer.

To give you an idea of his technique, I include his four guidelines below.

1.  Choose a sacred word as the symbol of your intention to

     consent to God’s presence and action within.

2.  Sitting comfortably and with eyes closed, settle briefly,

     and silently introduce the sacred word as the symbol of

     your consent to God’s presence an action within.

3.  When you become aware of thoughts return ever-so

      gently to the sacred word.

4.  At the end of the prayer period, remain in silence with

     eyes closed for a couple of minutes.

Anyone who has never practiced contemplation, but is willing to attempt it, will discover another way to draw close to God. I hope this post leads to deeper spiritual growth for anyone willing to practice it.

Blessings…

HELP!  HELP!  HELP!

In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth.

     Welcome back. Let's think about petition.

     When I was seventeen years old, my family fell apart. I had to leave home to finish out my senior year in high school. The school nurse where I graduated kindly invited me to live with her and her family during my last semester. I shared a room with her oldest son.

     I prayed to God that I might have a car and a job after I graduated. Through church connections I managed to obtain a loan so I could buy a Volkswagen Beetle. I still remember it. I bought it from one of my classmates. It was turquoise and white.

     At the time, I believed God really sent me a car. Why not?  When I played knot hole baseball, I often prayed that the weather never turned to rain on game days. I cannot recall a single rain out during all those games I played.

     God changed the weather so I could play baseball. I had ample evidence to suggest I was God's special son. I reckoned He (and I thought God was male) really really liked me.

     I mentioned that God sent me a car. I would testify to that in church. I'd say, "I asked God for a car and a job. To prove His love to me, God gave me the car first, and weeks later God gave me a job.

     I've had so many jobs, I can't remember where I worked. If it was the grocery store, one of my earliest places of employment, it did not last long. A cashier and I were fired after a couple of weeks because, on a slow night, I showed him a new wrestling move I had learned at the university.

     The assistant manager saw us horse playing on the floor and said, "Punch out. Go home!"

     So God had to fetch me another job so I could pay for His car.    Within a few days, He managed to tempt me out to a newspaper where I had connections and the high school.

     I have serious doubts that when we petition God, we are heard and God either grants our request, does not grant our request, or makes us wait. I also doubt that God intervenes in my personal history to fetch me what is God's will to allow.

     I petition God because it is only natural to do so. Anne Lamont says the two most common prayers are, "Help!  Help!  Help!" and "Thank you!  Thank you!  Thank you!"

     Indeed...

     There have been rare times in my life when I did not pray. Even when my fury rose against God, I still talked to God about it.

     "You know it would be nice if you showed yourself. If that's not your style, it would be even better if Jesus stopped in to arrange an interview on CNN, or even Fox News. Actually, I'd love to see Jesus appear on Fox News."

     Marcus Borg, in his book The Heart of Christianity, writes that "...petition and intercession serve the central purpose of prayer: intimacy with God."  (p.199)

     Intimacy with God is what all prayer is about. Our God of love elevates our love as we draw closer in wisdom and prayer.

     So I will continue to pray, "Lord!  Please let the Atlanta Falcons win the SuperBowl this year or least before I die or before Halley's Comet returns in 2061."

     "Please help me not become bitter and mean because my job is mean and inspires despair."

     "Please give me the strength to exercise more and lose weight."

     "Please keep me healthy and happy so that I may be a good husband and step father for decades to come with the family I love."

     "Please let me live to see Halley's Comet return again and keep my eyesight sharp so that I may see it after the Atlanta Falcons have won the SuperBowl."

     Blessings...

  

THE OTHER WAR PRAYER

In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth.

Welcome back.  Let's think some more about Mark Twain's "The War Prayer.

Last time I posted, I shared the first part of Twain's parable. 

The first part showed the nation going to war with great anticipation and feral joy.  One church, like so many around the land, prayed for victory.  

Below is the rest of the story:

     An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. 

     With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there waiting. 

     With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, "Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"

     The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside -- which the startled minister did -- and took his place. 

     During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said: 

"I come from the Throne -- bearing a message from Almighty God!" 

     The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. 

     "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import -- that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of -- except he pause and think. 

"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two -- one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. 

Ponder this -- keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. 

If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it. 

"You have heard your servant's prayer -- the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it -- that part which the pastor -- and also you in your hearts -- fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' 

That is sufficient. the whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory--must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen! 

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen. 

He paused for a long time, and said, "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!" 

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

Blessings...

THE FIRST WAR PRAYER

In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth.

     Welcome back.  Let's think about Mark Twain's "The War Prayer.

     Last time I posted, I shared President Roosevelt's national radio prayer that he prayed the night our troops were storming Normandy, France during World War II.  

     The prayer was an intercessory prayer.  Americans turned to God and were involved in the war effort.

     However, I would be remiss if I do not write about the true meaning of a prayer to arms.  No one has captured this meaning as well as Mark Twain's "War Prayer."

     The nation was about to go to war.  Everyone's excitement reached a feverish pitch as bands played, troops mustered, and churches prayed.  

     The story takes place in a church where a stranger appeared who claimed to be from heaven.  He told the congregation that their prayer had been heard. 

     Below is the first part of the story.  Tomorrow, I will post the rest.  As you read, recall President Roosevelt's prayer.  Do you see any parallels?

     It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. 

     It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

     Sunday morning came -- next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams -- visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! 

     Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. 

     The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation

     God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!

     Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. 

     The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory--

Blessings...

REACTION AND COUNTER REACTION

In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth .

Welcome back .  Let's think about the history of the warfare between science and religion.

I was thinking today how fundamentalism was a reaction to the Enlightenment in general and Darwin in particular.  For decades no one has taken fundamentalists seriously as they started their own private schools and universities, teaching their own version of science and history.  

Over time their political clout has grown and their world view, which is too absurd to bear up against science, has sought credence as a viable explanation of the nature of reality based on 1st Amendment protections.  

I think we are finally seeing a counter reaction of the scientific community to fundamentalism.  For one thing, public scientists like Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye are clearly responding to flaws in fundamentalist explanations with more accessible and well animated scientific explanations.  COSMOS has been outstanding in the way it compares flaws with facts.  

What fundamentalists , and evangelicals , for the latter are nicer, more hipster versions of the former promise about the past, present , and future is becoming less credible as years pass.  Rather, a synthesis of modern science and progressive religion is emerging.  Fundamentalists are becoming quaint like psychics and astrologers.

While science is becoming the truth.

Blessings...

THE LARGEST PRAYER MEETING IN HISTORY

In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth.

    Welcome back. Let’s think a little more about intercession since it can be so iffy.

     Intercession isn't just praying for others. It is being for others in your prayers. 

   Sometimes we pray in a group called a prayer meeting. This can be led by one person or several who are asked to pray.

     During World War II, on the eve of Operation Overload, President Roosevelt led a prayer that millions of Americans heard on their radios. It was an intercessory prayer for our brave men storming Normandy.

     He was also praying for our country, where the evils of racism flourished without the concentration camps.

     What made the president’s prayer an intercessory prayer was the turning to God by Americans who had sacrificed with their hearts, their hands, and their wallets to defeat fascism. 


     You see, to be true intercession, a prayer requires more than what we do on our knees. 

     Below, without comment, is the text of President Roosevelt's great intercessory prayer: read on the radio, June 6, 1944. It was originally entitled "Let Our Hearts Be Stout." This was the largest prayer meeting in history.

“My Fellow Americans:

     Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our Allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.

     And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:

     Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.

     Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.

     They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.

     They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest -- until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violence of war.

     For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.

     Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.

     And for us at home -- fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas, whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them -- help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.

     Many people have urged that I call the nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.

     Give us strength, too -- strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.

     And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.

     And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment -- let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.

     With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace -- a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.

     Thy will be done, Almighty God. Amen."

     President Franklin D. Roosevelt - June 6, 1944

BEGGARS AND MAGICIANS

In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth.

Welcome back. I’ve been posting about the five kinds of verbal prayer:  praise, thanksgiving, confession, intercession, and supplication. Let’s think about intercession.

Intercession is problematic for many faith people. The lame adage, “God answers all prayer. He says ‘yes,” ‘no,’ and ‘wait,’” was created to offset the reality of orisons devoid of action.

The theology underlying such a perception about prayer suggests that poor old ancient of days God has nothing better to do than jump to our beck and call when we require room service from him. Well, jump, say no, or make us wait.

Thus Being-itself with all its infinite vastness waits upon little old me.

Intercession is much deeper than that. True intercession is when I pray for other people, and with other people, in such a way that I spiritually become them in order to heal them.

When I was a kid, I prayed this prayer every day, “Dear God bless everybody in the world.”  There is nothing wrong with a prayer like that. I still intercede for the world in the same way. Somebody has to do it.

However, such intercession is easy. There’s a huge temptation to believe we have done our duty to the world simply because we prayed.

However, everybody in the world is not being blessed. Millions die every day without ever having one chance for a cure. They feel forsaken, you know, like a son of God might feel.

Some say God is blessing everybody. Yeah, right. Such blessings have a funny way of showing themselves—like live possums playing dead in traffic.  

The longer we live, the more life teaches us about suffering. Millions die from disease. Millions die from natural disaster. Millions die from accidents. Millions die from suicide, homicide, and that great purveyor of both:  war.

When I was a baby Christian, I prayed like an infant for Jesus. When I became a man, life surrounded me on all sides, became more complex, and I had to grow up.   

I confess that I have been cynical about prayer, not because I stopped believing in intercession, but because I outgrew our evangelical culture of magical prayer. When people got sick and died, that was God’s will; when people got sick and lived, that was God’s magical love.

How many times have I heard good country people say, “The doctors told me that it’s a miracle I’m alive. Every single one of my organs turned into chickens, but the good Lord kept them clucking smoothly.”?

God gets all the glory when a brilliant surgeon saves an evangelical’s life. The surgeon gets a thank you note. Researchers in the science of medicine and developers in the techniques of care receive little or no acknowledgement.

That’s just another way to prefer magical thinking over science. It’s a shame. Medical science is everlasting intercession.

Theologically, it can be argued that it’s a wonder any one of us is alive.

Biologically it can be argued that being here today, typing this post, is a wonder or sheer luck for me. Little-seed-me managed to out swim millions of  little-seeds-not-me free styling to be first to cross into my mother’s fertile membranous start line.

Indeed, Jesus’ powers to heal have increased as medical science has flourished.

I have a dear friend whose baby girl was born with a rare and lethal cancer near her optic nerve. We all prayed for his daughter to live.  A surgery was proposed. The medical team said, at best, the odds were fifty-fifty she would go into remission. Many people prayed for her and many churches.

My friend told me before the surgery about the cancer support group he and his wife joined. Others’ children did not live. Their souls followed their prayers on the way to god. My friend said that he did not believe that God would spare his daughter just because he and a lot of other people were praying for her.

If you think about, the whole kit and caboodle of this kind of prayer seems faithless. We seem to believe the rules of reality that work for us change for God.

We pray as we are begging God to change God’s mind. We pray as if we have to let god know the death of our dying children would irretrievably shatter our souls. We are afraid if we do not pray fervently then he won’t hear us. We believe with hearts we’ve flung to the floor that we must pray with as many prayers as we can or god will not be persuaded to grant our wishes.

What happens to some people when they lose a child is they are lost too.

Intercession must go beyond begging and magic. Our God of love works through minds and bodies. Love is the greatest intercession of all. Love urges us to rely less on knees that bend, more on hearts that give, and always on hands that heal.

Praise God for life!  Praise God for medical science!  Praise God for the strength to endure the edge of night!  My friend’s baby girl lives today. She speaks French. She loves art. She lives.

Let us give thanks.

Blessings… 

TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT ME

In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth.

Welcome back.  Yesterday, I wrote wrote about two of the five kinds of verbal prayer:  adoration and thanksgiving.  Let's think about confession.

We must tell the truth about ourselves.  That is confession.  We must be honest to God about ourselves.  That is confession.  

The problem today is that too many people think they are just fine, but no one is just fine, especially Christians.

I am often amazed at what a tiny tyrant is the god of Jesus when I hear it described in the mouths of loud preachers.  They imagine their divine dictator to be the source of all that is.  How can that be when that tiny tyrant is merely an imagined replica of themselves?  Why can’t people see that and confess it?

Many of us love to prattle about how much we love liberty, equality, and righteousness, but what we really love is superiority.  It is quite natural for each of us to believe that we are better than other people for whatever reason we can make up just to stoke our hubris. 

I drive a better car.  I go to a better, bigger church.  I cheer for the world champions.  I read the best books.  I am the strongest, the prettiest, the fastest, the smartest, the best, by god, the best.  I watch the best movies and television shows.  I live in the greatest country.  I hale from silver spoons.  I digest gold so my shit gleams.

Even the so called simple man, the ordinary Joe, sets himself up as superior because he knows nothing and hates everything complex.  Ironically, he cloaks his pride in humility, praising himself for not being all that special while at the same time glorying over his loyalty to his tribe.

Often, he is boorish, prejudiced, and ignorant.  He has managed to go through most of his life without ever reading a good book.  His conversation about sports and tools sparkles.  He rivets us for those few minutes it took for him to explain his tiny world view.  He demonstrates for us how he and his tribe are the salt of the earth. 

A truth about salt is that salt is unconscious.  It would never know when its flavor has departed.

There I go, setting myself up as superior.  It is an obnoxious human iniquity. 

The truth is the following:  not one of us is righteous.  We all need to confess how that is real for us and confess that to our God of love, our friends and family, and to ourselves. 

None of us are so wonderful that we can’t admit that all that fancy glow we see radiating about ourselves is easily revealed for what it is once the light of inexorable truth shines on us. 

What is that inexorable truth?  We are all sinners.  I do not mean we do sinful things.  Sin is a theological concept that points to the brokenness that exists between us and every single relationship in our lives:  God, neighbors, enemies, loved ones. 

We are all strangers to one another and ourselves. 

All of us turn away from God.  To turn back, we need to acknowledge what blinds, hurts, or kills us.  To acknowledge that is to make confession.  Only then, can we follow Jesus on the path of self abasement that turns our ways to love.

When we look in the mirror, we see the one who is screwing up our lives.  That is discernment.  When we look in our God of love, we know the One who knows who we truly are.   That is confession.

Blessings…

VERBAL PRAYER

In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth.

Welcome back.  Let's think about prayer.

Prayer is as natural as breathing.  Often it cannot be helped.  Often it surprises us like a love letter in the mail.

There are three kinds of prayer:  verbal, meditative, and contemplative.  I will write about verbal prayer for this post.

There are five kinds of verbal prayer:  adoration, thanksgiving, confession, intercession, and petition.

ADORATION

Adoration is praising God.  This prayer is easy to pray, but sometimes I wonder if God really wants us to keep telling Him or Her how great He or She is.  Is it annoying?

However, somehow our hearts cannot help but express our love and awe for the ground of our being.

My brother once attended a Pentecostal revival where he "fell out" and began speaking in tongues.  We argued somewhat about this.  He insisted that all Christians must speak in tongues to be truly blessed by God.  I refused to denigrate his experience, but I insisted that my devotion to theology, writing, and Bible reading were just as much a connection to God as speaking in tongues.  What we give to God adores God.

Thanksgiving

We must thank God when it rains if we thank God when the sun shines.  I believe Satchel Paige said that.  I agree.  I thank God for everything except suffering.  

I never pray, "Thanks, God, for my chronic back pain," but rather I thank God for my being able to love my life-with-pain.  

Suffering sucks.  Life, with or without suffering, is a gift.

I will never thank God for anyone's death, or my own, for I do not believe everything that happens is the will of an all controlling deity.  Rather, I believe we reside in our God of love whose will is grace everlasting.  I grieve the loss of grace my loved one's presence gave to my life, lingering only within my heart's memory.  For knowing that, I thank God always.

So in all things let us give thanks…if not only because we still live to give it.

Blessings…

VAST INTERNAL INFINITY OF BEING

In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth.

Welcome back.  Happy Saint Patrick's Day.

Let's talk about prayer.

It's natural to pray.  Atheists should pray and often do, but believe they do not when they fail to fall to their knees or invoke a deity by name.  

The moment life blows us apart, and we wish for things to be otherwise, we are in a moment of prayer. We yearn for that time before the disintegration of our complacency, or a time better and beyond falling apart, and it is the yearning that shakes off our finitude like an old, long skin. We arrive before the vast internal infinity of being, our course having veered to new possibilities.  

That is prayer that wants no god to fetch for us.

The instant we sense life's sinister creep growing like the Blob, smothering our spirits, strangling our vitality, and we wish things to be otherwise, we are in an epoch of prayer.  

This instant may extend everlastingly:  as felt within a day, a month, a year, or a decade for some. 

We may not invoke God's name, which is not a name that anyone can actually say, but our hearts having become brooding, anxious sparrows may yet fly to nest securely in the vast internal infinity of being or may yet fall and be known.

What I mean by "vast internal infinity of being" is our sense of awe, of absolute time that seizes us when life would crush us.  It is that moment when all compass points vanish and all navigable stars in the night of our lives have been extinguished.  

We live, enduring the duration of not knowing, of fearing the terrible ends of no good choices, of either sharing our anguish or hauling it silently.  

I am describing the dark night of the soul.  We do not have to be Christian mystics to know it.  All we have to do is live.  

The thing ever true about night is we might dream it lasts forever, but it never does.  The spreading dawn overcomes the creep of night.  If we dream of eternal starless night skies, then when we awaken, we will know the glow and warmth of light that has always been.

I am writing about prayer...wordless prayer.  There's no need to ask for anything...praise will do...thanksgiving is always appropriate.  

If we must supplicate, then ask our God of love to make us carriers of love, infecting the entire universe, and spreading to infinite universes beyond us, so that life, not hate, names us.

Next time, I will write about how to pray.

Blessings...