Praying to all the Faces of God

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.

Holy One

Holy One:

Please take this burden from me.
Allow me to lay this down -
to give it into your care and your wisdom greater and deeper than my own.

Allow me to rest in your arms like a child in one's Mother's arm,
Like a shipwrecked sailor tossed up upon your shore.
Let me sleep knowing that what ever comes you will be with be with me, with us unwaveringly
not in perfection, not in everything being fine or without trouble - but that you will be with us
as our Comforter and our Teacher.

Teach me in this moment.
Help me to understand what you would have me learn here
Teach me to make sense out of the missed turns and broken dreams, the series of disappointments that make up this life, that make up all human lives.
Grow me
Grow me into a more perfect disciple of your love,  a better vessel of your message.

Heal me.
Heal me of the scar tissue that acts as a barrier to the new or the now.
Heal me of the fears rooted in the past and bring into the present with you.

Forgive me
Forgive me for my timidity that has kept me from action or faithfulness.
Forgive me for the actions I have taken in anger or in hurt that were not as you would have had me act - that were not pure.
Forgive me me from the arrogance of thinking I had forever, for tarrying and wasting precious time, for false priorities or missed opportunities to draw closer to you.
Forgive me for when I forget you and live completely in the Kingdom of Man rather than your Kin-dom.

I would ask you to be with me, but you have already promised me to always be with me.
So open my eyes so I may see you clearly and without fail.
Hold me in your gaze, so I am not wander into the veil of forgetting.

Show me what you want me to do.
Make sense for me out of these confusing maze of life events.
Does this mean stop or does it mean try harder?
Does this mean rest in solitude or does it mean wait for your companion?
Your language is hard for me to understand - help me to hear clearly your intent.

Easter Eggs and other Prayers

I have struggled for years to have a daily (well nightly actually) prayer practice.   Although for years my daughter and I have said prayers allowed with each other - saying first thanks for that which we found to be a blessing in the day and then saying prayers for each other.  But I have wanted something more than that.  Recently at a public meeting a man well known for his work for social justice shared his daily prayer practice.  I was very touched by it.  It inspired me to once again focus on this.

Another thing which made me focus on this is that as a therapist I have read the literature about health and happiness.  The literature is pretty clear people who have religious lives are both happier and live longer.   And happier people express more gratitude about life.  (Literature also says 50% of happiness seems to be inherited...just an uptick we are born with.   For some of us this is NOT good news because we know what we inherited!  However, only 10% is circumstance the rest is considered to be in our control and the attitudes we hold towards life.)   So I have been trying to get serious about my attitudes!  I realized wistfully that unfortunately, I learned nothing about gratitude from my parents.  Its not that they were grim miserable people. But they were private about their spiritual lives, so if gratitude was part of their inner life I don't know.   But outwardly they were task oriented - please and thank you were not big words in my family and there was also a rather prominent tragedy in my childhood and that took focus certainly away from gratitude.

But I'm very aware of the deep and meaningful gratitude with which many people I know live.  A friend of mine got out of prison after spending 30 years behind bars.  It was amazing to watch him hug a tree for the first time in 30 years, pet a cat...how a pine cone on the side walk could turn him to tears.  It was a very poignant and powerful reminder to me that I have taken for granted the small joys and beauties of life.  This same friend sent me this link one day called gratitude:   I encourage you to watch it.  It is certainly also a powerful reminder of all that we overlook.  So I decided I was going to look for the blessing in my life.   At the moment I decided it I was feeling rather down, and thus felt like it was going to be a hunt.   The image popped to mind of an easter egg hunt...hidden just barely peeking out beautifully colored and decorated eggs, put there with love.   I shared this image with a worship sharing group I belong to and several indicated that they too wanted to look for Easter Eggs.

So that was the first part of the nightly prayer practice.  Step two was about looking at the bad, but in a new way.   The happiness scientists now say we can teach children optimism.  This involves teaching that the bad is temporary and the good is permanent.   We still have to look at the problems of course.   A client of mine had encountered in some other kind of therapy this very magical question to ask when we feel everything is terrible.  The question is:  How could it get any better than this?  Of course on first glance this seems ironic or even sarcastic.  But if you stare seriously at the question you begin to realize that it is an invitation to bring our imagination to seeing our way forward and up. It helps us begin to project a better future.  So my second prayer stop is to review one upset of the day and apply this question.

Like many I have read Jampolsky's Love is Letting go of Fear..where he says among other things we are either in love or in fear.  I know the truth of this, and I'm not proud of the fact that too often I am in fear.  Although I know that fear is what brings me into "God who?" (mentioned in other blog posts), and I know that the best thing for me to do with fear is to bring God right into it -to give my fear over to the Almighty. This has been the hardest thing for a scared brain to remember.  So my prayer step is to ask myself: am I in Love or fear?  And if I find I am in fear to then bring that fear to the All Powerful One.

Step four is the old familiar pattern I shared with my daughter of offering prayers for others.  I say my prayers for those in my life whose struggles I am aware of - asking for healing of their hearts or bodies, to find right work, for Americans to make good choices about Climate change or choose wise national leaders.  Ask for those who are lost or lonely to find direction, etc.  Ask for courage for those who are carrying a leading, etc.  I have been taught to focus on visualizing the desiring and not on the problem.  ie not to ask that someone's unemployment will end, or even that they will find a job, but to say thank you for the job having arrived in their life now.  To ask that something will is to keep it in the future tense.  My prayers are worded to place them in the present tense.

I have been very influenced by Wayne Dyer as I have mentioned in other blogs, especially what he has written about living with intention.  Interestingly, our happiness scientists also say that living with purpose and with a sense of efficacy increases our happiness.  Dyer refers to some research that says that what we go to sleep thinking about sets sort of "marinates" while we sleep.  So I have wanted to end my prayers and my thoughts with positive intentions for the next day.  So I first review in my mind what I am doing the next day, and then I set certain intentions - to see and speak that of God in my clients, to express love in the world, to notice beauty, to notice the people in the grocery store as real people, etc. 

So here it is my nightly journaling prayer ritual:  

It begins with listing 3 to 5 Easter Eggs = the blessings of that day.

Then I write one thing which upset me and ask the magic question:  "How could it get any better than this?" (and answer it of course)

Third I ask myself: am I in love or fear?   I turn over to the Comforter whatever fears I identify or ask the Holy One into the fearful or terrible place in my heart.  And if I am somehow resistant to that I ask My Holy Parent for the willingness to turn the fear over.

4. Prayers for others
Finally, I set my intention for the next day, and hope that I will both fall asleep and awake with that positive thought in my mind.

Living as part of LIfe Itself

Recently I have been reading the book "Tomorrow's God" by Neale Donald Walsh.  In this book he both says we will (need to) move into a new spiritual renaissance if we are to save the planet and that it will include a new understanding of God which he calls Tomorrow's God.  He says we will (or suggests we should) stop using the word God (or Allah, or any similar words) because of the huge amount of misunderstandings and baggage we have attached to that word.  Instead he suggests we use the word LIFE.

Notice how this does shift some misunderstandings.  I for one think the ideas that God as vengeful, punishing, jealous or only blessing the US are distorted understanding of the Divine Being.  So in his schema of substituting the word Life you get:

A punishing God = A punishing Life.   Well that sort of clears up that Life does not punish us.  Sometimes other people do, but that is based upon their will, beliefs, or values.  They were not directed by the Life force to punish anyone.

A vengeful God = a vengeful Life.  Again there is no evidence of Life creating vengeance.  Some animals eat others but it is not vengeance.  Some people are vengeful to other people but again out of their emotions, or beliefs.  But the Life force does not make them vengeful.  In fact it is easier to notice that when a group acts vengefully towards another that the life force does not direct them to do so....they may call on beliefs to explain their actions, especially religious beliefs or as Walsh would say "the Old God".

A jealous God = a jealous Life.  Now it starts to seem rather absurd doesn't it?  How can life be jealous?

God Bless America = Life Bless America.  Well Life does bless America, and every other country too. While certainly some have far less material goods or sometimes less useful natural resources, none are without laughter, kindness, creativity, etc....in other words the blessings of life.

And then there is the other side of this:
A Loving God = A Loving Life.  Yes indeed as we look around we see all kinds of evidence of Life providing love, and love coming through all aspects of life and in fact creating life.

God the Creator = Life the Creator.  Well that one is fairly obvious huh?

God as my refuge = Life as my refuge.  Here I notice that if I use the word Life it helps me to notice how I should be approaching life.  Rather than trying to run to God as a refuge against life!

God the Provider = Life the Provider.  Certainly life provides many things, but what we want?  In the old way of turning to God and praying for things to be provided we were always like helpless children and what we wanted may or may not be provided.  (Some religions claiming that only if you were virtuous or hard working did God provide.)  But life seems to provide in no predictable pattern....or does it provide what our intentions are?  What we co-create in alignment with life's energy?

This also syncs up very well with what both Walsh and Wayne Dyer (and countless others) say about manifesting.   Dyer refers to The Universe (instead of God) and both talk about the Universe or Life as being neutral about what is created or provided.  Ask for sorrow or anger and that can be provided.  Ask for Love and joy and that can be provided.   We need therefore to be conscious about what we ask for and where we put our attention because what we dwell upon Dyer says is what we manifest.  Think endlessly "Oh I have so many bills to pay" and sure enough more bills will show up.  Think endlessly "Oh my life is blessed" and sure enough more blessings will show up.  So I would like to put my attention on the goodness of life and the love that is abundant in life.  I think if I put my attention on love and goodness I'm liking to live Life more deeply, more consciously.

When we pray to God this often evokes a sense of receiving or being denied, of a "power over" or a parent or "the Santa Claus God" who I have written about in a previous blog.  It is also to get mad at God for what we decide God has done. If we call this energy Life, it is I think still possible to pray to it, but it does sort of change the interaction.  There is wonder, awe, gratitude and joy, and there is the attempt to perceive the Life Energy and to align with it.  But any appealing to it...well you just have to go more into that co-creation or aligning the life energy with the bigger life energy.  From my point of view that keeps me more true to how I want to pray anyway.

Joanna Macy talks about how in systems theory you have living parts that make up bigger living parts.  So for example we have cells that make up organs (also parts of our life) which make up our live bodies and then our bodies join with other bodies to make up living communities, etc.   She points out that these parts at each level cooperate to make the larger level function.  But something much more profound is able to happen when any level has self-reflection upon itself as a separate living being and ALSO part of a living being.  So if I engage in being consciously aware (mindfulness) of being a part of Life/God this is different than living as part of Life with no awareness of anything beyond my own self.  It centers us into life itself.

God Who? and the Garden of Eden

As I have previously written about (See: God Who 1/12 post) I can frequently go into a “God Who?” state. This is not a state where I doubt the existence of God but rather where I forget The Holy One.  Simply drop into the World and forget that I’m divinely connected to a Higher Power.  What I have also learned after decades of struggling with this is that fear is the surest path into this God who? state.

I was in a relationship that God lead me into and yet when the going got hard I got so scared that I went into the “God who? state” which eventually lead to its end.  I am pleased that at least in the beginning I did a better job of staying connected with the divine.  In one conflict, meeting my partner’s self-righteous anger, I felt defensive and also angry.  However, when the next day we went to sit in silent meditation I remembered in that silence that the position my partner had argued for was one I had been lead to many years ago and in fact reflected the Truth as I knew it.  It was a series of life events, accommodations to life struggles, that had taken me in another direction.  I realized that while my partner’s anger was agitating me that he was in fact calling me back to the Truth as I had found it, and with that clarity I was able to easily change my behavior.  In this incident I did not feel the fear of loosing our relationship and so I was not derailed from listening to and hearing the Holy One’s voice.

In the previous post I talked about how the Story of the Garden of Eden has also something to say about the state of forgetting God.  I’m not a bible fan, but certain stories are powerful allegories, and the story of Adam and Eve is such a story.  It is story of being in a seemingly perfect place, much like love is when we first fall in love.  As anyone who has ever been in love will tell you, as well as quite a bit of research, we sadly cannot stay in that rosy colored classes, oxytocin induced state forever.  Eventually, we come in contact with knowledge that makes us see the world/ our partner as they really are, to come in touch with the difficult places.  However, there is more than one possibility at that point.  There is the exile from Eden or there is the learning of how to navigate love inside of reality, the learning of the lessons The Teacher would have us learn at that point.  But that does require remembering that there is a Teacher and being attuned to that Teacher.  Adam and Eve forgot God, and so they did not receive his guidance but the false guidance of the serpent instead and thus were exiled from Eden.

For myself fear is a sure way to forget God and once the fear of the relationship breaking up hits I go into that frozen fear state.  As I did when I was a scared child I try to think my way out of the problem, I take actions or desperately demand actions out of others.  Both of these are out of the head and not out of the Spirit.  In Adam and Eve terms they are listening to the Serpent rather than the Creator of the Garden.  Unfortunately, when I’m in that scared frozen place nothing seems to help, not being at the Ocean – normally a sure path to the Holy, not sitting in prayer asking for answers…only sometimes can the message be delivered to me through others.  And of course it does not help if both me and my partner are in a state of fear for no Light can come thru either of us in this state.

So what next?  Now comes the learning we do after we have left the Garden of  Eden about how to walk with The Gardener in the World where we now live.

Santa Claus Prayers

I have in past posts covered various ideas of how God might speak to us, and I have also described several people’s experience of asking God for answers and the answers they received.  Various denominations teach various ways of praying from meditation, to chanting, to memorized prayers which are repeated at appointed times, to prayers made on one’s behalf by others, etc.  And again I would ask the reader to consider all these forms and how they fit or do not fit with the Image of the Divine which you have embraced for yourself.  If you don’t know if they fit I encourage you to try these different forms and find your own experiences with them.  I don’t believe there is a right way to pray.  I think you will have to find the way that brings you into intimate and reliable relationship with the Holy One.

Once I had a conversation with a friend where we agreed that the “trap” in prayer is to make the Santa Claus prayer.  This is sort of praying for things.  It seems to me that we need to be clear in ourselves what it is we really need: to pray for a home not a house, for transportation rather than a car, etc. and have faith that the Divine Provider will sort out what best provides for us.  I remember really wanting a baby, but instead being given the Divine nudge to go to graduate school.  As it later turned out after she was born my circumstances changed, and I needed that degree to provide for that baby.  The Provider had known the right order for everything to unfold as it should.

Part of praying in my experience is reflecting on my current situation and being able to name in what ways I need help, and to name the truer need – not the outer package of that need.  It also means seeing my emotional state and recognizing when I need to ask for comfort, recognizing when there is fear, anger, worries, or confusion that I need to turn over to the Divine Comforter.  It can be way to easy to try to carry everything going on in one’s life oneself, or to try to make a partner or parent be Godlike in what we want from them.  This is when it is good to offer up the burdens or the desires of our heart and then let go of the outcome and be able to listen for God’s response.  This listening would be the kind of listening as described in previous posts.

Praying for others, or intercessory prayer as it is called in some traditions, takes into account some of these same qualities (avoiding Santa Claus prayers on behalf of other people) and offering up to God our concerns for others and then letting go of them.  As a therapist I carry concerns for many people; if I kept them all as mine to carry I would loose my mind.  It is the Sheppard that makes it possible for me to be with people’s pain and not be overpowered by it.  Prayer for others is also remarkably effective.  There are studies where people in hospitals have been put in two groups: those not prayed for and those who had people praying for them. Those who were prayed for healed faster and did better.   My partner tells a story of when he had been diagnosed with a tumor pressing on his inner ear and was scheduled for surgery.  Many people prayed for him.  When a finally scan was done to give the surgeon an image to work from, he was called by the doctor to say that in a month’s time it had shrunk to almost nothing and that he no longer needed surgery!

There are of course many different traditions which suggest that prayers be made in a certain way, calling on God by a certain name, using certain objects or postures or rituals to aid the prayer or make it more powerful.  If you find yourself drawn to these traditions it will be important to learn these ways of praying and to be sure that the methods of a religion you are attracted to really assist you. 

How Does God speak?

People often complain that God is silent or at least very unclear!  The God of the Old Testament leaves 12 commandments, parts seas, punishes an innocent man (Job) just because he can, and says clearly you shall have no other God but me.  (ie the claim in strongly made for monotheism.) The God of the New Testament says Love is the only commandment and works miracles through his son Jesus.  (speaking therefore thru a person and also thru miracles.)  Unfortunately, most people do not find these answers very helpful in figuring out the role of God in the daily world they live in.  As always, I encourage people to find theological answers, from where ever you find them, that serve you in your life.

I have a client who says that because she has never heard God's voice she feels God is a Creator who finished the job and watches with mild interest, but is "definitely not interventionist."  For me this simply returns us to the idea of how do you hear Inward Voice?  If we are looking for a thundering voice in the wilderness, commandments on a tablet, a burning bush, or the fulfillment of a prophecy then most people would conclude that indeed God is dead.  But I think we have been done a big disservice by being taught that that is how God's voice is heard.  Most modern clergy would urge people to turn to prayer and listen for answers, but again I don't think much instruction is given on recognizing the answers.

This reminds me of the joke (previously related in another post-clearly one I'm fond of) :  A man is in a flood and he goes on the roof of his house and prays to God to save him.  As he watches the water rising, another man floats by on a log and offers him to get on "no he says, I will be saved."  After a while more a man comes by in a row boat and offers him to get in.  He again refuses saying he will be saved.  With alarm he sees the water now reaching the roof and as he stands ankle deep a helicopter comes and lowers a rope.  He again refuses shouting "I will be saved".  But he drowns, and after he does he gets to the gates of Heaven and he says to St. Peter  "I prayed to God to be saved, why did he let me drown."  And Peter says with annoyance:  "For heaven sakes, he sent you a log, a boat, and a helicopter....what more did you want."

For me this "joke" speaks to the idea that we can fail to hear God's answer to our prayers if we have preconceived ideas of what the answer will be.  Not only do we have to offer the desires of our heart and then let go of the outcome, but we have to be able to "hear" with special ears.  My experience of how God speaks is on bill board signs, thru nature, thru other people's mouths, through lines in various books, thru amazing sychronicties, etc.  But I have had to learn how to recognize the sort of invisible "red circle" around the answer.  One of my friend's told me she had learned to pray and ask for a "very clear unmistakable signs" to be given.  At first I thought "Well that is a lot of hutzpah telling God how to deliver the answer".  However, then I realized: "but I do need for the answer to be clear."  So now I ask that too sometimes.    

I remember hearing a man giving a talk, and he talked about praying for direction as to whether he should go to Divinity School.  He said:  "God if I should go to divinity school send a sign"  A redtailed hawk suddenly flew across the sky.  They were very rare where he lived, but he thought this could be a coincidence.  So he said  "Send a clearer sign."  Then two hawks flew above him.  Thinking it might be the mate he asked for a clearer sign.  He admits that when it got up to 4 he resigned himself that God wanted him to go to Divinity School.

I know there are those who will still say both the joke and the story of the hawks are coincidences, not signs from God.  Those folks will also scoff at the popular practice of asking something in prayer and opening a holy book (or I find any meaningful book will do) randomly to a page and understanding that something in the content of the page contains the answer.  They say:  "wishful thinking.  Reading into it the answer you want, etc."  Except that the friend mentioned in that story did not want to go to divinity school.  He was already examining the question because of other spiritual nigglings he had received.  Many ethical humanists will also argue that this is all just a fancy way of listening to our conscience which is innately human inborn trait.  I do agree it is innate.  However, I also happen to think that having one is one way that God calls us to a certain path.  So the whistle blower who takes great personal risk to serve the good of the many; the spark that makes us tell the truth instead of a lie, the civil servant or the Good Samaritan that risks their own safety to save another, I think listen to the Inward Light that burns in each of us, speaking of the Greater Good that the Creator desires for us all.

But I must also acknowledge that another difference between the skeptics, or the Humanist, and those of us who believe that God does speak to us, is actually having a spiritual experience.  When one has had an experience of an answer so clear and so undeniable that to deny it would be a kind of blaspheme,  or has had an Experience of The Presense that was overpowering, or life changing, or as some would say a second birth, then there is a kind of certainty that comes.  This certainty is not faith, any more than it is faith to believe that the sun exists during the night time.  I have met people whose fear and skeptism was so thick that I do not know how they could have such an experience - how they could notice the log, the boat or the helicopter as a Presence.  In fact I have met people who have gotten in that boat and helicopter and talk about their great good fortune and how they have worked hard for everything they have, noticing not the abundance of Grace they have experienced.  But I have also met people who earnestly seek and long for that confirming Presence and haven’t found it.  I do not know why they have not had it - other than perhaps again expecting it to look a certain way - like Jesus or Mohammad or a parting of the seas.  I would encourage those who seek such experiences to be open to it looking any sort of way, but also being able to answer your question "Is this what I think it is" with at least 4 more hawks.

This is also to say that if you want God to speak to you than you must be in dialogue; you must start the conversation.  Funny how friends never call if you never call them.  So if we ask The Divine Teacher for answers we are much more likely to get them, if we ask the Divine Mother for comfort we are much more likely to get it.  If we ask the Divine Provider for our hearts desire, we are much more likely to receive it.  If we sit silently saying nothing, or even brooding about the lack of communication from God than we are likely to continue to get silence back.  When we put the question out there than we can wait for the answer that comes not immediately, but in a sort of metaphorical language, which is still quite obvious when the answer appears before you.

God the Father; God the Mother

When I was in my 20's I was looking at how I prayed and I realized I started prayers with "Dear Lord"...well this I realized was really messed up!  After all the Lord, was the oppressive master in a feudal system of economic oppression....hardly how I wanted to think of the Holy One!  So I started trying to decide how I wanted to call God:  Father...no that implied God was male.  Mother....no that implied God was female.  Goddess...same issue.  Creator? Nice but seemed to overlook the time with God after creation.  Aba...same issue as Father above.  After I read Yahweh was Hebrew for “the One who cannot be Named” I liked that for weeks...but it simply did not ring for me.  Eventually one day in worship I heard the melody of a popular song that says in one line  "Oh by beloved I'm crying".  I had always thought of that verse as being about a human lover, but it occurred to me that God had to be the Most Beloved.  But even that seemed to ignore other aspect of God - God the Creator, or the Divine Parent, etc.  Then suddenly to the same melody I heard all of the names playing in succession and then I realized they were all the right name!  The problem was trying to reduce God to only one name.  I then saw that what I really wanted to do was be in the present moment naming the Most Miraculous One as I experienced God in that very moment.  From then on this is indeed how I have called The Great Soul and have saved the word God for a coin of the realm when I want to be sure another knows what I mean or when I am simply intellectually talking about God and not relating to my Creator.

In the many years I have spent talking to people about their experience of the Spirit I see however that our concept of God is highly shaped by our own personal experience of our parents.  After all our parents were the first all powerful beings we experienced, and if things went well they were also the first beings we felt loved by.  Unfortunately they were also the first people who punished us, and the first people who hurt us.  So I find if someone had a distant aloof parent they tend to see God that way.  If they had a loving supportive parent they tend to see God that way.  If their parent was very punishing they believe in a God of the Old Testament.  And so it goes.  In fact once I gave a workshop entitled "Healing our Spiritual Wounds" and almost all the wounds people brought were a difficulty in feeling connected to God.   When I asked about their relationship to their parents they would describe a very similar difficulty in that relationship.   So I invite you to consider for a moment in what ways do you see God as like your parents?

So are you just in trouble forever if you had a terrible relationship to your parents?  No, not at all, but it does mean that you need to connect to where in your life have you felt unconditional love or at least most strongly loved.  It helps to then consciously strengthen the connection in your mind between that behavior and set feelings and your concept of God.  That person has modeled to you a small portion of the Divine Lover.  I think this is very important because I think a large portion of people who give up on religion or even on God do so because the images in the Bible often describe an angry, or vengeful or punitive God and that way too easily connects to painful parental images.  Apparently, Aba is Hebrew for essentially Daddy - Jesus calls God Aba in this very familiar and tender way.  I think we need to be able to call God in ways that are familiar and tender because they allow us much more easily to connect to a Loving God!

I think one of the disillusioning and difficult moments of life is when we first realize our parents are not perfect or all powerful!  This I think is its’ own fall from Eden.  In facing the difficulties and travails of life I think there are times when we all need to be able to turn to someone or something larger than ourselves. If we are lucky, sometimes we can lean on a partner, but even they are not big enough for some of the trauma’s and loses of life.  Some of my agnostic friends say  “Oh this is why people make up the concept of God – to have a crutch to rely on.”  I’m not concerned about this.  I’m not concerned because I have been able to rely on The Rock and that has been real.  But I’m also not concerned about it because the pragmatist in me says:  So if we make something up and it helps and we even live a better life for it… then what is the problem?  Studies show that people who identify as religious have better mental health over all and tend to rate themselves as happier on happiness scales.   So is this such a bad idea?

A friend of mine shared with me that her spiritual life was always a struggle - then one day she went to a workshop where she was invited to call God Mother- in that moment she says something revolutionarily changed in her spiritual life.  Suddenly she could see God in her own image.  She could notice the gentle, nurturing, life giving qualities of God.  This is not everyone's experience.  For some of us to give God any gender again traps and makes smaller The Infinite One. 

But I do invite you to examine: is God male or female or genderless in your experience of the Only One?  Is God the Creator of everything , or the co-creators with all of Life?  Is God all powerful, or simply the field of Unity upon which the Universe rests?  Is God the creator of our conscience or is God neutral and unconcerned with the choices of mankind or of a (wo)man? What qualities and traits do you experience in God? How big is the God you know? What names call out to that which you have known in your own soul?  But most importantly, how do we get really personal with the Inward Dwelling One?

Recoknowing..or spiritual nigglings

Recently in a conversation with another person she came up with the word "recoknowing". What is this?  It is a brilliant way to describe the spiritual experience of knowing something on a deep or inner level and being mindful enough to recognize it as truth - truth from the Source.  Not long before in a conversation with a client we addressed the topic of "communication with God".  My client felt very frustrated that there was not/is not enough communication with God.  This of course brought up the question of how do we know when God is speaking?  How do we hear God?  (I have loved the UCC banner from a few years ago that says:  “God is not done speaking.”)

It became clear to me during the course of talking with my client that if we have a very precise, narrow or anthropomorphic idea of what God's communication is like, then a great deal of communication can occur that will go right by us.  It reminded me of the old joke about the person in a huge flood who goes up on the roof of their house and prays for God to deliver them.  First a person comes by floating on a big log and offers space on the log.  The person says no feeling the log is too small and too risky.  Then someone comes by in a row boat and offers help - no the roof dweller says, feeling confident that God will save them.  Finally a helicopter come by and lowers a rope, but the roof dweller again refuses feeling the rope and the ascent to the ‘copter is way to scary.  Eventually the person drowns, and when they go to Heaven they rather reproachfully say to God:  "I prayed for your help.  Why did you not save me?"  God replies:  "I sent you a log, a boat and a helicopter - what more did you want?"

I wonder if we do not often missed God's communication in much the same way, not seeing it in the "ordinary" or human language it may come in.  It has been both a joy and a frustration in my life to try to understand the synchronistic or metaphorical way God may sometimes speak to us.  But if you ask people to tell examples of synchronistic events that have happened in their life - often at very critical turning points, some of the stories will actually send shivers up your spine. 

I have always been both fascinated and horrified at the same time by the stories after 9/11 of people who were suppose to be in the Towers that day, or on those flights who weren't:  the person who didn't go to work that day because he was taking his son to his first day of kindergarten, the woman who broke the heel on her high heels and stopped to have them fixed, the person who went out on an errand, the person who was fired the week before  - or the person who "missed their plane" or more tragically the man who was on the plane because he rescheduled to spend the night before at home with his wife for her birthday.   Are these all simply coincidences or did Spirit speak to each of those people calling them to certain choices they made that day or week?

A friend of mine's young dog chewed on her glasses scratching them.  The only way she could get a new pair was to have another examination done, the first in four year - only to discover that she had severe sight threatening Glaucoma.  Coincidence, or Spirit speaking?  Another friend happened by a series of unusual turn of events to be at a meeting with a man who sold supplemental health insurance.  She heard his pitch for a special cancer rider which could be added to your policy which paid all uncovered co-pays and lost wages if you had treatment for cancer.  Something in her just nudged her to do it.  6 months later she was diagnosed with colon cancer; the policy made the different for her as a single person going through 9 months of chemotherapy.  Serendipity, or the Holy One whispering within?

Some denominations tell stories of the faithful following God's direction so literally that they would come to an intersection in their horse and buggy and wait until they sensed which direction to go next.  John Woolman,  a famous Quaker, journaled of feeling called to go to Barbados to preach against slavery, buying the ticket on a ship and traveling all the way to the port and then at the port getting a "message" that he had completed what God had required of him and turning around going home!  Madness or faithfulness to a message received?

Have you ever felt sort of driven to tell another person something?  Not because you were trying to persuade them of a given point or tell them what to do, but just felt it was important to communicate some information, inspiration or encouragement to another?  This is an almost daily experience for me.  Sometimes the words are sort of shrugged off with a sort of "oh right, whatever", but more often they are received with great gratitude and even sometimes with a "thank you I have been really thinking about this, looking for this communication."  This I think is an example of how God taps us on the shoulder and asks us to minister to each other, therefore using our mouths as the vessels that deliver the messages.