THE RINGS ON THE COVER ARE COFFEE STAINS!!

My book I PRAY ANYWAY: Devotions For the Ambivalent is now available on Amazon as a paperback book and on Kindle. There are two different covers.

Both involve a red cup and coffee stains. I've had people ask me what on earth the cover has to do with the inside of the book and others that know immediately. I instinctively wanted to have coffee stains. Why? I always pray (my way) with a cup of hot coffee by my side. It is my centering device, my cup of hope, my chalice. Warm, welcoming, habitual and RED.  Red is my comfort color, warm, fun, energetic, and powerful.  My books and bed side table are covered with variations of coffee stains. I spill, I jolt, I slop. I like the designs of the stains. My life is real and raggedy and full of stains as I live and search and live and love and live and enjoy and live and cry and live and get mad and live and feel awful and live and am grateful!  See what I mean—kind of a beautiful design and mess all at the same time.

So now you know. Not Olympic rings, not wedding rings, not the Q in The Quran, not a Zen design. Then again, why not?  

JOY ANYWAY

My book, I PRAY ANYWAY: Devotions for the Ambivalent is now available on Amazon and Kindle!! Just go to I PRAY ANYWAY and there it will be. Magic!


And I've been thinking about it as I realize people I don't know will read it.
( I hope)  I think I have an addendum to the book.  I wrote the book to share my kind of prayer and reflections EVEN WITH all my reservations about religion and the state of the world and how the universe works. I made the decision to pray regardless after years of not praying.

Here's what I want to add.  There is JOY anyway.  Joy all over the place.
Good days, horrid days, ridiculous pain, injustice that pummels hope
and because I pray anyway, there is joy.  That's what I want to make clear as this book begins its own journey.

Please enjoy the book and send comments of ideas to iprayanyway@gmail.com
The book will evolve and grow with your input.

I WONDER AS I WANDER

Christmas made me think of Jesus-----and Muhammad and The Buddha.
I know Jesus best.
And not at all.
More questions than knowing.

But I do know a couple of things:
I don't care about a lot of the common questions about wisdom leaders.
I like the mystery and go back and forth on what I "believe" about the facts-- of Jesus' life and death for instance.

Here is what I know:
—Something good happened from Jesus' living and the story of his life.
And the 'good' continues. Many people want to live a more Christ like life.
They pass on the stories of Jesus and it is an anchor to a more loving, giving life. Hope, the mystery of life and the possibility of an unseen creator allow the pain of life to be transformed. And so the Christ spirit continues. True too, for 
The Buddha and Muhammad. The part I trust is that many many people in the world want reverence and divinity in their lives. And I know we have to quit making people wrong for how they approach the desire for goodness in the world.

—I will "pray anyway" without absolute belief and rightness.

—I know the peace and joy of deep prayer

I love the title of a recent book RELAX, IT'S JUST GOD.
The book is meant for non-religious parents to handle the topic with their children.  But for me it means, "Give up trying to get all your spiritual ducks in a row. Just go ahead and "pray anyway".