PARIS

I wanted to write about the new book I have coming out the first week of December  I PRAY ANYWAY: Devotions for The Ambivalent! In fact, I quit writing this blog to work on the book and was surprised to see people had been reading
the entries regardless.  Thank you.

Hard to write about praying and ignore the horror of Paris. I would prefer to start writing here again with a joy focused entry. Or how I have a mantra to keep me out of the mire of my own fussing.

But, Paris.  Puts us right up against it. The "it" being how far to go in loving your enemy or in compassion for all sentient beings. I hear the retaliation talk. 
It sounds like sputtering in the wind for this kind of terror. To retaliate in kind is 
at heart, uncivilized where as traditional war is somehow OK. (Traditional war follows the rules for uncivilized behavior)  

I avoid a true response by focusing what we must do before we get to unleashed hate--love, feed, respect, give opportunity. But hate is here.
Evil is here. What to do?  Of course, I'll pray anyway.  And then?  What to do?

GOD BLESS US, EVERYONE

That's how I feel on Memorial Day.
God bless us.
God bless the dead and their families.
God bless those who have killed.
God bless a world that needs a new way to deal with big conflicts.
God bless our instinct to violence.
God bless a globe dying (literally) for lack of peace
God bless our skepticism of a possible peaceful world
God bless the hope and idealism  of the founders of the United States of America and the model of governance they created.
As Tiny Tim said in gratitude and joy, "God Bless Us, Everyone". 

SURRENDER!!

I hate the word "surrender".  I equate it with personal failure.
I give up too often on things like health goals, projects and doing things for other people. Surrender to me means not meeting the goals I've set for myself, realistic of not. I punish myself for that kind of surrender.

What I'm curious about is a different kind of surrender.
The kind of surrender I want to practice is that of "ceasing resistance".
It's a way to allow good to come right smack dab in the middle of 
things being the way you hate, don't want, can't stand, won't tolerate.
In that moment comes the time to breathe deep and allow "What is" to be.
Most religions promise peace and joy in that kind of surrender.

I'm going to give it a try.  

I see it as giving up, not giving in.
It means, "cease resistance".

WHY THIS DISCONTENT, THIS HUNGER?

Don't ask me! I do get sick and tired of it.
I do think it is a soul thing.
If I give up my more than intellectual interest in prayer and spiritual life, I am relieved for a while. "Good, now I know who I am and where I stand."  I want to be a good person and let it go at that.  Then the discontent starts. How to explain it?  My life is good and yet not right. That's the feeling. So then, 
I turn to my devotional practice which gets me more crazy. So many points of view. I can find peace if I choose one path, one book, one culture, but only for a while. Soon I disrespect myself as a dilettante. So I give up. Then discontent and hunger grow again. Back to devotions.  I mean it when I say, "I pray anyway".  "Anyway" is the operative word.  In spite of discontent, contentment, good happening, bad happenings, I pray "anyway".  It's an experiment that needs good protocol.  That's what my devotions are--the protocol to see the result of a constant kind of prayer.  

BLESS OUR SWEET SELVES

 This poem (from I PRAY ANYWAY—Devotions For the Ambivalent) seems to 
capture this day perfectly.  It is the first mild day in Maine that truly promises Spring will come. We all look like stunned groundhogs as we begin to walk outside as opposed to the outdoors being a gauntlet we had to run from car to house to car to work to car to shop to car without reprieve. There is such vulnerability in the relief of it.  

The stunned gratitude
As winter people come into the sun
Cautious to believe the reprieve
Ant then slow smiles as they trust
Spring
RebirthHope
Such a vulnerability
This faith
Because Winter will come again
Count on it
Bless our sweet selves

FOR A GRANDDAUGHTER'S BIRTHDAY--2 YEARS OLD

Prayer/Poems from I PRAY ANYWAY--Devotions for the Ambivalent!


107

Thank you thank you thank you
For this sharp, sun-lit Winter day
For all the comforts I have
Books
Beauty
Plenty of people to love
Fun food to cook
Words to write
Possibilities to grow
Incredibly blessed
And for one glorious moment, I know it 
With no equivocation

108

It's so easy to forget a miracle
It joins he day to day so fast
Then back to yearning all over again
Maybe numbed out is the way it has to be
Or we'd be overtaken by grandeur
We'd explode with wonder and gratitude
Just "pop" and disintegrate with joy

HOW HAS WRITING A BOOK ABOUT PRAYING CHANGED ME?

I was asked that very question by a friend who read the rough draft of I PRAY ANYWAY--Devotions For The Ambivalent.
He was complimentary about the book.
He thought it made me very vulnerable.
Then he said, "Who cares about the book? How did writing it change you?"

Here's how:

I'm much more casual about saying to my husband, "I'm going to disappear for awhile to pray."  It has become normal in the household.

I'm still shy or worried about perceptions when it comes to talking about it with family and close, close, close friends.  Embarrassed to acknowledge how serious I am about it.

I do have a larger hunger now for spiritual food than when i started the book.
I'm not sick of it.

I am more interested in sharing the writing and having conversations about it than I was when I started writing the book.  I'm tired of my own voice. I want to hear others.

I do feel a sense of adventure to think that prayer provides guidance and a kind of alignment of purpose, capital P.  I'm still learning to not be embarrassed to admit that.  

I do experience more day to day mini-miracles meaning something good happens that has no rationale or scientific basis. Shouldn't be possible and is. 

I do feel like I am a writer for the rest of my life.  I've always been a non-writing writer. You know what I mean.

I turn to prayer for comfort and get it.  I end up with a kind of strata of joy that doesn't go away.

I'm less satisfied with the present forms and language of religion.  They just don't fit the global transformation we are in.  

I'm more interested in science, especially New Physics where spirit will meet 
the tangible world.

I hurt more for the craziness of the world and get mad less.

I feel like I've come home to a part of me I ignored for many years.

That's enough. Good question