In a previous post I have described my written prayer practice, and also in other writings I have talked about my struggle decades ago to figure out to what God did I pray? How did I start my prayers: Lord... as I had been taught (but felt so wrong), Creator, Father, Mother, Protector, etc? Each name felt incomplete and lacking while still also rich in its own right. I eventually came to understand that God was a name for calling spirit as a noun, but not who I prayed to, and that no name was complete and all were valid. I learned to pray by feeling into how I was experiencing God at that moment and calling out that name. Curiously my written prayer practice as previously described does not call out to any name of God.
This weekend I realized that what has been missing in the last year of my prayer life has been the part that has to do with laying a burden down, giving things that trouble me over to God, not trying to be my own All powerful Being! As I was trying to reflect on how to weave that successfully into my prayer life I realized I need to pray to all the faces of God. I am going to interweave the steps that have been part of my practice with actually calling out to the faces of the Holy One in the following way. (They are in a different and better order now)
Dear Provider: This is the face of God for me that is God as Abundant and Provider of all Blessings. So just as I have started with naming my blessings, now I will thank the Provider for those Blessings and that Grace. I may even add on here prayers to the Holy One which for me is about the awe, wonder, beauty and mystery made by the Creator. So I may also give thanks for that level of blessing here.
The second motion of my prayer practice has been to identify the worst event of the day and ask the magic question "How can it get any better than this?" That question has helped loosen my despair and attachment to the stuckness of things. It has allowed me to see possibilities and to be open to change. However it has been sadly devoid of God. So now I will pray:
Aba:(or Father): This is addressing to the listening and loving God - a naming of the struggles and burdens of my day.
Dear Transformer: By praying to the source of all transformation and asking the above magical question I can notice better that it is God who enters that difficulty and loosens and transforms it.
Mother (or Comforter): This is the place where I used to notice whether I was in fear or love (which I eventually stopped doing because I was pretty much always in fear which just got discouraging.) By turning to the Comforting God is where I can now begin to lay down my burdens and my fears. I have an image of crying in the Mother Gods arms, or laying upon her breast like when I lie on the sand of a beach. I can even take this one step farther and call out to My Rock if I need to be anchored and grounded for challenges ahead.
Dear Creator: This is where I usually say prayers for others. I have said those as Thanksgiving for that which already exists in the mind of the Creator even though as I make the prayer it has not yet happened. For example Thank you for Carla's new job. So these prayers of Thanksgiving I will make specifically to the Creator in the awareness that it is the Creating force that brings these.
Gardener: I am adding this one in. I'm realizing I need to ask The Holy Gardener to root out, to weed from my soul that which stands in the way of other healthy growth and life. I need to ask that One to also plant seeds where s/he sees fit and where I may not know to even ask! This face of God is helping me to notice the need for humility about all that is unknown about the human journey.
Lover: This is to call in the face of God what loves me...a face I have been sadly disconnected from my whole life. (I did not grow up in one of those churches that sang hymn about "Jesus loves me this I know", or how "God loves all the little children of the world".) I have always believed in a loving God but somehow that did not really translate in to noticing that God loves me specifically. It will be good to pause for a moment in this prayer process and simply feel that and let that in.
Dear Source: This has been the place where I have set spiritual intention for the next day (to walk in love, to forgive, to be grounded, etc.) But again I must notice that all of my intentions must connect to Source or else they are but vain and puny motions of the ego.
And even as I sit back joyously prepared to pray a new I am aware that in another year, or more? or less? Spirit may move me to pray in yet another way as this is a process within the soul, not a practice graven in stone.
