TALK ABOUT WRESTLING WITH THE DEVIL!!

I haven't done a formal launch of my book I PRAY ANYWAY!
There have been lots of reasons for delay:
Waiting to have am author's website
Waiting for new cover design
Waiting for review blurbs to put in the book
Waiting for reactions for formal readings
AND
Wondering about its worth. Everyone is writing books today and with lots of paid for advice and support to do it (and most of the consultation is very very good. I recommend it). 
I, on the other hand, just wrote a book because it seemed to appear.
I didn't think about sales or who my ideal reader was. 

Well now I am. And in a moment of thinking of moving on to a new book with strong purpose, clear market and clear need (CEO Note to self--What We Want You to Know) my husband 
stepped in and reminded me of the value of I PRAY ANYWAY!

Here is what he said:
—This is a reassuring book. It is a comfort to hear someone put into words and thoughts that are hard to catch, because we don't always know we are thinking them. It is a relief to read your book. 
—Your impulses are authentic and legitimate. Many people share them, but aren't bold enough to state them. We need the spiritual in our lives.
—There are many other people who have this kind of yearning to explore spiritual meaning in an overly secular, scientific model world with worn out religious approaches.
—Your readers are willing to explore and share as they strive to achieve new understandings and realizations beyond what exists now .
—It is this group of people (your market) that will create new forms in the future as we learn to respect again the role or mystery and transcendence in our lives. This is why we yearn.
—You have given voice to a new barely begun movement in a very personal accessible way.


Well there.
"He will not always say, what you would have him say. Then all at once he'll say something wonderful!" (From South Pacific, I think.)  Thank you Don David.

I had gotten so close to my work, I couldn't see it anymore. I had author's fatigue.
So, onward.

NEW REFLECTIONS THAT SURPRISE ME

I have enough reflections for a new book.
I was reading through some today.
Here are a few that surprised me.
I don't remember writing them.

               1
—I don't pray without God
I pray without shenanigans!

This one made me laugh because I mean it. Prayer is so simple. Blurt it.
Whisper it. Shout it. With music. Without music. In the car. On the toilet.

              2
—Peel away everything
That isn't God
Then peel some more

Hmmm. Not sure what I mean. I think I mean God is a mystery and the essence evades us.  I wrote these first two on the same day and guess I felt comfortable using the word 'God' which I often avoid.


               3
—What a ridiculous agony
To love everybody
Makes things so difficult

Laughing again. You know how it feels in a good moment to love everyone--as long as it stays theoretical. That's what I'm talking about

               4
—I've been trying to kick the goad
(a great phrase--look it up)
To avoid pain
And making everything worse

Wow. Where did I pull that phrase from. That's what's so fun about writing. You just never know what is stored in your brain. Anyway, in Biblical times, a goad was used to make your ox move--goad him.  It was side at one end and sharp point at the other. So if the ox kicked, it only pushed the sharp point into his tender spots.  Yep, makes sense

MULTI-CULTURAL EASTER

(I share this from my www.truthburps.blogspot.com  writing today)

There are times when I wish I had one perspective and one only. It must feel so simple to
see things through one lens. Sure of being right. Not bothered by a strong alternative point of view. No multi anything. Clear.   

What triggered this thought was Easter and its varied celebrations in different cultures. 
I was lucky enough to experience many in my global work. I would love to be able to follow the path that led to these traditions. Who started the idea and why it stuck. 

Here's one that I bumped into by mistake. Big mistake. I was in the Czech Republic working, running a leadership conference. I noticed there were big and small twisted sticks with varied color ribbons on the end. Festive. I grabbed a bunch to spiff up the boring sterile ballroom we were working in. Well I learned what they were and fast. The sticks are used for Easter Monday. Men go door to door to visit the moment. The women bend over and are 'spanked' with the switches. Sometimes the men splash the women with water too. How very jolly. AND then the women give the men a shot of whiskey and off the men go to the next house. Think what the last house they visit must be like. Well there. Anyway, the modern women leaders did not like that I had put the darn switches everywhere in the room. Out they went and a great cross-cultural discussion ensued. (Look it up, it's for real)

Then there is Mexico that doesn't involve eggs except at the start of Lent when eggs are hollowed and filled with glitter and white flour and the goal is to crack strangers over the head with them. By the end of the day, all brown faces are powdered white. The Friday of Palm Sunday all houses are decorated with purple and white and so are the churches. People go house to house to view them and to receive----a Popsicle. Used to be salt water representing Mary's tears, but the kids must have hated it and thus the Popsicle. Easter Sunday, effigies of Judas are exploded all over town like a pinata stuffed with firecrackers. Very satisfying

Belgium has flying church bells. The bells are quite from Good Friday until Easter Sunday.
They fly away and come back with chocolate and other candies for the children. I imagine a priest trying to tie the sweets to Holy week somehow. "Here's an idea. The bells are quiet anyway. Let's say they fly away and bring back candy. Show of hands??? Good. Flying bells it is.

I can't leave out Greece. Greece does Easter with great joy. Yep, eggs but only red--the best shade of red ever. Red is great for Easter--blood and fertility!! "Forget pink and yellow. We got it"  Everyone has them and use them up fast. Two people each hold and egg and hit it against one another's egg. Whichever egg doesn't crack wins. Sacrosanct.

I take it back. I don't want one point of view. I love the variety and the richness of so many differences. Fertility, pagan Spring, Christ's resurrection are all tied together. Christ would smile and understand it all and understand us as well.

THINK WITH ME. PLAY WITH ME. EXPERIMENT WITH ME

Somewhere , I think on Facebook, I posted some very esoteric stuff that I said made sense to me. It was about the make-up of the universe and the relationship between thought and matter. (Just to be clear, I also love reading junk magazines about Angelina and Brad).
It made sense to me.

The following quotes come from Joseph Campbell, my personal St Joseph.
These quotes feel true to me, a much stronger statement than making sense. They are from 
A Joseph Campbell Companion. Both center around 'growing awareness'.

——Yet there’s also some great strength to be gained by giving up that religion, by going beyond it. I mean, if you really do. If you just “drop out,” that’s something else. But if you think it through—if you learn to read the symbols as metaphors instead of accepting them as the facts they’re purported to be—if you know, in other words, why you are out, then it can be a source of great strength. But when you do break out, you then have to set up your own sacred field——

 I share my very naked reflections and prayers and personal history  in I PRAY ANYWAY:Devotions for the Ambivalent. It was a book that didn't need to be published but pulled me to publish it. I think it is because I was setting up my own sacred field. And it gives permission for others to do the same, which may mean staying in your original religion or doing something very different. I think many of us are going to create a new sacred field that shares what's common in our religions and honor the differences. I'm getting clearer and clearer about that. But first we need to 'play' with the idea, grow possibilities and experiment with new forms--interspirituality. That sounds surer than I think or feel but I'm heading that way.

More from Joseph:

——The only Western teacher I have found who gets it is Meister Eckhart, who says, “The ultimate leave-taking is the leaving of God for God.” All of our religions hang onto the image. None has gone past its god. The still point is going past the god. Goethe says, “Everything temporal is but a symbol.” Nietzsche says, “Everything eternal is but a metaphor.” They are saying the same thing. “Everything” includes God, heaven, hell, the whole works. So as long as you are living to get to heaven, you won’t find that still place—

One has to go beyond

the pairs of opposites

to find the real source.

Think with me. Play with me. 

NICE AND EASY DOES IT

I am impatient and eager to do more with my book I PRAY ANYWAY: Devotions for the Ambivalent. I haven't even done a formal press release. I got sidetracked with building a website which by the time mine is done will probably be obsolete. I want one place where all my writing can be gathered. So all is good--anyway. Check out the splash page which is up until the entire website is ready-- readjoyce.com  or  joycewilsonsanford.com  Fun to come

But, I want to do readings with lots of discussion. The last one I did we ended up talking about how awkward it was to talk about prayer.  We were blown away by how differently we each prayed. We even talked about times when we think something divine was going on or when we were sure God had spoken to each of us. We laughed a lot. 

So I am in a getting ready phase of work.
I want to do online workshops about Prayer--why we pray, why we don't, how we pray, new ways of praying, new ideas about science and energy and prayer and new movements in relation.  That kind of workshop.
And I want to do an ANYWAY kind of workshop. What do you do--anyway?  What do you wish you would do--anyway?  When is 'anyway' a good thing and when not?  That kind of workshop.

I made a decision when I began doing this work (writing three blogs, a book and counseling people, that first priority would be my health, then family, then experiences I'd better hurry up and have and then work--with the Divine guiding it all.  

So, I breathe and look at my glorious Mexican flowers all around me and I press on, letting it all unroll with less push from me


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