2020.01.19 Prayer Habits

The most important thing I offer about prayer is this: Make it a habit! Some of it will feel useless or tepid, or foolish, or too wise for your own darn good, but do it anyway. It forces you to shift the focus away from your own glorious and ever-needy ego—at least once a day. It humbles you to invest some faith in a mysterious power deeper and greater than yourself, while you are simultaneously investing in your embodied self.

Things about prayer:
    There is no wrong or right way to pray.
    Never pray for something you are not willing also to work for, however you can.
    There are public prayers we all say together when we worship, and there are personal prayers we say inside our hearts, or alone in voice or song. All are equally spiritual. There is absolutely nothing you cannot express to God in prayer.
    You do not have to believe in God to pray.  If you’re worried about that, just pretend you do, or address an image of God you can open up to. God does not care. (It’s humans who do!) Besides, God will pray with and for you—no matter what.
    Prayer may not change things outside you, but it will change you from within. You will get to know yourself better as you pray. What matters most deeply? What are your ideas about God and why? What happens when you pray to Jesus?
    It is as important to ask as it is to receive. BOTH. And for the love of God do remember to say thank you, occasionally.
    It’s important to involve your body when you pray. There are many praying postures.
    Jews daven and murmur prayers. They move their lips and their bodies bow up and down. They pace and pray the psalms when a child is being born—nervous for the labor of childbirth, therefore rote well known prayers are the menu.
    All Psalms are prayer songs to chant.  Shiru l’Adonai shir chadash (Sing to the Lord a new song.)
    Buddhists and yogis and yoginis  make prayer hands as they bow to one another and say Namaste (The divine within me salutes the divine within you.)

    Muslims kneel and bow down five times a day to recite prayers—all the way down to touch the sacred earth and pray. FIVE!
     Pray naked—very revealing. (Don't recommend trying this in church on Sunday, at least until everyone has gone home—or not.)
      Christians pray standing , kneeling, sitting, and making the sign of the cross (head, groin, right side, left side). The Eastern Orthodox cross right to left. I do both. The gesture makes the sign of the cross to remember the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ, Christians’ role model to say the very least, and to remind me—and God—to be in my mind, womb, right side, left side. [I cannot resist an old yiddish joke that explains crossing oneself to remember: spectacles, testicles, vallet and vatch.] 

Most prayers address the Divine. ALL prayer is energy that connects divine and earthly, temporal and eternal. Do animals pray? Of course. Look deeply into the eyes of a dog. Relax into the vibrations of a cat’s purr. Shiver to a lion's roar. Or go on a silent retreat and listen to your own breath.

Prayer is a spiritual practice, a habit as essential to life as cleanliness and courtesy. It keeps the soul alive. When you cannot pray, others do it for you.

I have kept a prayer journal at different times in my life. I write letters to God: Dear God, love, Lyn. P.S. Amen and I love you.

2012.06.11 Omigod!

While in NYC at Easter time we stopped in a little deli to grab a small lunch. Of course since chocolate chip cookies are my favorite and I lean religious,  I was attracted to Ohmigod! cookies.   They were shrunk-wrapped and tied in black and white grosgrain ribbons with Ohmigod! printed in black on the white ribbon.

Who would do a thing like that? I had to know and I had to have the cookies.

Here is the story of Ohmigod! It began with an essay written by Matthew for his 7th grade English class:  “There I am sitting at the kitchen table waiting for the best dessert ever. My dad and I are baking a magnificent cake which used to belong his grandmother. We were having fun but all I keep thinking about is that cake in the oven.  Finally the cake is done. My dad takes the cake out of the oven to cool and cuts up two little pieces, one for him and one for me. We both take a bite into it at the same time and say “Oh my God.” Every week we would make this cake together until a tragic thing happened. My dad passed away. I was so sad and all of our friends and family were at our house to show that they loved us to care for us and to keep us company. It was about four months later that I asked my mom if we could please make my dad’s cake in memory of him, because it was his favorite cake. Now my mom and I make the cake all the time and it comes out great, almost as good as my dads used to, but most of all in my heart, when I make this cake,  I will always remember my dad.”

When Matthew turned 19 he began to share the cake recipe in local shops. Matthew is now 23 and has a business that is booming.

His mother writes: “I do believe in divine intervention and I am certain that Matthew’s dad is smiling down from up above. To all of you “Ohmigod!” fans out there you really are taking a bite into heaven on earth!”

I made an informal Easter Eucharist out of the delicious cookies and remembered my own dad.
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We are leaving for Israel tomorrow in the early a.m. I hope to post some travel blogs, but mostly I just want to be a pilgrim.

I’ve always dreamed, among other things like long silken hair, a wasp waist, being a priest, and getting published, of going to the land where Jesus walked. Why? Oh, because he’s my guru and the one who taught me to be real because he was. He makes me say OmiGod!

Also, I had a Jewish grandfather I never met but whose people may have walked Palestinian land, at some time their home.

Going back to pick up life spaces in fact has become more enlivening than going forward. No wonder! My long-term memory has far surpassed my short-term one.

For today I hope only that our visit to the land we call holy will be holy, imbued with wonder, love, gratitude, God’s own dream of peace, and droves of spiritual experiences—also strong joints and a chocolate chip cookie, or two.
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Our Jewish neighbor, the one who is a beautiful singer and who has never been to Israel, just came over to sing a Christian liturgical chant she’d prepared for us as a send off.

Omigod!