READ PHYLLIS TICKLE

Isn't her name enough to make you want to read her?
I discovered her shortly after she died.
The Shaping of a Life is her autobiography and tells of her becoming acquainted with 'spirit'. She is so natural and pragmatic about it--until she has a much bigger experience of and 'after death' experience. I may get some of this wrong because I gobbled her book rather than digesting it. But she was a kid playing hide and go seek and hid in some thick backyard bushes. It was there that she had the sense of another world existing alongside the physical with only a thin membrane between. Phyllis was married to a doctor and had lots of children.
Her story about the development of faith was so trustworthy to me because she kept it real. In fact her husband didn't 'get' her 'after death' experience and so they didn't talk much about it. She didn't resent it. Phyllis simply said, "In a marriage there are things that you don't talk about for the good of the marriage" It sounded practical and wise and not at all repressed. 

Phyllis was the religious editor for Publishers' Weekly and so was in touch with new trends and issues. She wrote a book titled Emergent Christianity. It was such a helpful book for me.
I tend to pick up on trends intuitively. I did that in my work as an executive in food retailing
and I think my book I PRAY ANYWAY: Devotions for the Ambivalent is a voice for the confusion going on in organized religion. Phyllis talks about religion's need for an every five hundred year garage sale to get rid of the clutter and spiffing up the worthwhile.
She lays out an historical pattern for what is going on now in Christianity that makes
sense of my own disorientation that I explore in my book. I feel less crazy and less guilty and less quiet about my own spiritual hunger.

Enough. Read Phyllis Tickle!

I AM OFF MY PATH

Here's a kind of cranky reflection on stubbornly bad day, meaning I would take no comfort. (You don't have those?? Riiiiight.)

I am off my path
And baby I don't like it
PTSD and me
Don't get along
Don't demolish my family
And expect me to snap out of it
With no scars
I am scarred 
And on some days
The scars stretch to bursting
Ready to splatter my pain on every bit of love I've loved
But then I watch Orange Is The New Black
Or Food TV or drink wine
And the scars are soothed with the toxic balm of our time 
And prayer never enters my mind

DAYS OF AWE

I am not Jewish but I have always been attracted to and by the High Holy days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I first learned about them when visiting a Synagogue on an ecumenical field trip of some sort from my Methodist Church when I was in sixth grade. I was more interested in holding hands with my boy crush of the week but i was hit hard and was intrigued by the rituals and preparation for The Days of Awe.

Let's talk 'awe' for a minute. We've forgotten what awe is as we call everything 'awesome' from food to a movie. Awe is a very big deal--a kind of reverence and profundity mixed with a dash of fear leading to repentence. Methodists didn't do much awe when I was twelve but I knew it when I saw it.

Rosh Hashanah is what New Year's ought to be. You are held accountable.
The Book of Life is opened for the ten Days of Awe. And probably you've messed up quite a bit. So you have this protected and protracted time to sit yourself down and think about it. (Synagogue services are long and often during this time.) And here is the hard part and good part and the healing part, you are expected to ask people directly for forgiveness for any wrong you have done.
(Maybe ten days is not enough.) Then your name goes back in or stays in the Book of Life for another year. You stand in good stead. 

I like everything about The Days of Awe.
--enough time to be profound and not perfunctory
--communal remembering of history and lessons learned
--fasting to remind us of the ability to reject  temptation
--everyone in a community cleansing and healing at the same time
--individual and group accountability
--a sigh of relief and a renewed commitment to do and be better.

I always ask forgiveness of my Jewish friend Eileen during The Days of Awe.
It feels great.
Think if we took time for awe and accountability and forgiveness in a systematic way with our families. 'Awesome' would be the right word.

THE COURAGE OF NOT KNOWING

The most important word in the title of my book I PRAY ANYWAY:Devotions for the Ambivalent is not "ambivalent". The important word is "anyway".

The book seems to attract two groups. One is the non-affiliated (meaning they identify with no religion and on the US census they check the box for 'non-affiliated' and are called the 'nones'. The other group is people who are affiliated but uncomfortably so. They can't break away from their church habit or religion but it is a compromised relationship. One group can't/won't commit and the other can't/won't leave. 

It is so much more comfortable and satisfying to be fully engaged and committed whether we are talking about  sports or love or work or religion.
That is not where we are as a culture. We are a bifurcated culture in the US with strong passionate groups at either end of the spectrum absolutely knowing they are right, their way is right. The middle is not holding up well economically or
in any other way of moderation.

Rather than being seen as wishy-washy, I hold that those of us holding the middle space of not knowing, of staying open have the hardest job. We often stand alone and quiet while the ones who 'know' bludgeon one another. In religion it is particularly difficult. It's hard to find a voice for uncertainty and confusion. My book gives voice to that undercurrent of spiritual yearning with no form for it to take that feels like the right fit. 

So it is not the ambivalence that matters. It is the 'anyway'. The courage to press on without knowing and pray anyway. 

LOOK HARDER

I do pray 'anyway'. The 'anyway' part is quite important. I'm not waiting to be hit over the head with a perfect belief. I trust, hope that there is a transcendent 
reality to our lives. God is one way to describe it. But my prayer and my study of praying can get too abstract and then it is worth nothing but my brain's exercise.

So I love it when I get hit by a very grounding thought. This one comes from John le Carre ain his memoir THE PIGEON TUNNEL. His life and writing about spying, which is certainly bound to make reality very fluid, has taught him the following: Moral clarity is diminished by increased understanding. He says this: "The harder you look for absolutes, the less likely you are to find them."

So if you are looking for a spiritual discipline for this election year, try looking harder at those around you who are spouting absolutes. Stay soft. Stay curious. 
Stay respectful. "Love your neighbor as you love yourself". 

Look harder.
This is the essence of everyday prayer.

MY KIND OF PRAYER

My kind of prayer is, well, my kind of prayer. It fits me. I do several kinds.
I howl in pain. I beg for people I love. I collapse with grief and I use Mary to help find a parking place. Really.

And I include lots of 'thanks', mostly sincere, but some out of counting my blessings to fall asleep or out of guilt for forgetting how lucky I am. (Luck is a whole other topic in relation to prayer).  

When it isn't a spontaneous prayer burp, I often sit and strain and wiggle to try to get to a prayer place. So I use devotions to open the portal. I may have to try quite a few but eventually somthing strikes me and in I go.

Want to know what it feels like when I get there?  Calm and warm and soothing and so very OK even when every darn thing is not. And sometimes there is a hint of guidance or direction. Not bad.  

Please read www.truthburp.blogspot.com  for 9/11 thoughts

'ANYWAY' IS THE OPERATIVE WORD

My book— I PRAY ANYWAY: Devotions for the Ambivalent— will be out with a new cover and some changes near the first of October. In reviewing it, I've had great discussions with people. They tendency is to talk about the power of prayer, the hypocritical nature of those who pray and are not such great people, the deadness of most prayer, and the enduring state of a world in need of, well, love.

The words in the title that attract attention first are 'prayer' and then 'ambivalent'. Some readers or potential readers are turned off by the word 'prayer' and then relieved by the word "ambivalent".  Others are bothered by the word 'ambivalent' and wish there was more emphasis on 'prayer. 

Right. But 'Anyway' is truly where I am coming from

Not sure about this God stuff?
Pray anyway
Wonder about the creative energy of the universe?
Pray anyway
Know that the world is cruel and unfair
Pray anyway
Your life has hurt and disappointed you?
Pray Anyway
Your life is magnificent, sparkling with all things good?
Pray Anyway
Pretty sure religion causes lots of problems
Pray Anyway

That is the grand experiment of the possibility of the sacred and divine in every day life.
Pray ANYWAY.