Midweek Faith Lift
September 11, 2024
“Prayer Flow 1-2-3”
Rev. Deb Hill-Davis
Spiritual Passages
September 2, 2024
"We know there are stars so far away that their light has not yet reached the earth. Could the same be said about the bright ideas, virtues, creativity, and dreams of our own lives? Perhaps some night when you get up to pray, something will turn over in someone's heart and find its voice all because of your small prayer. Never underestimate what little acts of love can accomplish. Do not take lightly the sacred connections that are possible in daily life. Perhaps our very waiting in the darkness gives some struggling unknown pilgrim of the hours hope." - Macrina Wiederkehy, Seven Sacred Pauses
The paradox of prayer is that as it strengthens us inwardly, it also strengthens us outwardly. As we grow spiritually, we become ever more effective catalysts of love in the marketplace. We discover the Holy One within us and the Holy One beyond us. We learn there are no divisions between the sacred and the secular when our vision is transformed. Our entire life becomes imbued with God-ness as we notice the Holy One's touch anywhere and everywhere." - Joyce Rupp, Prayer
Affirmative Prayer for Today: O Holy Spirit, you are the mighty way in which everything that is in the heavens, on the earth, and under the earth, is penetrated with connectedness, penetrated with relatedness.
St. Hildegard of Bingen
This week, Unity celebrates World Day of Prayer on September 11 & 12. The 2024 theme is “Fueled by Faith, I Can Move Mountains.” How fitting it is to continue exploring and using this new understanding of the affirmative prayer process as prayer flow during this special week of prayer. Last Sunday, we considered how the affirmative prayer flow actually works in daily practice as we use it in everyday life. We also contrasted it with the more traditional Unity understanding of the 5-step prayer process. The newer understanding of the prayer flow process is one whereby each movement leads to the next. Like the image of the fern frond, each movement unfurls our consciousness “toward the expansiveness of divine realization,” as Rev. Linda describes it. We pray to concretely activate the Divinity we are. And that is when mountains move!
As we consider the first three movements of the Affirmative Prayer flow, let’s pause and reflect on the condition and purpose of prayer. Affirmative prayer applies to all of life’s moments, the celebratory and the challenging. In our divine/human experience of life, we most frequently turn to prayer when the human experiences are most pressing, challenging, frustrating and unyielding. And that is just fine! It is good not to wait until the Titanic is sinking, for sure. And it is helpful to stay “prayed up” so as to be in good practice when the really big tsunamis of life loom large. Finding that place of “peace in the midst” of the storm is such a blessing and a gift. But wherever we are, we pray.
So what kind of condition calls us to affirmative prayer? First we remember that we do not try to control the condition with affirmative prayer, instead we are opening to a shift in our consciousness that transforms how we experience the condition and then open to healing in the mind and the heart. Consider the following: My brother and I are not speaking and I fear I have lost him forever. That is painful, for sure and it is important that we acknowledge the pain and not try to pretend this state of things does not exist or that it does not hurt. Trying to do that is spiritual by-pass and it is not a fruitful path. As we pray about this, we are looking for a spiritual antidote that will shift our consciousness, and we are mindful that we have NO control over whether our brother will ever speak to us again or even want to do that.
Eric Butterworth has wonderful insights into this in The Universe is Calling. He says:
The important need is not to try to effect some change in other people [or circumstances] but to make some changes in your thoughts and feelings about them. Don’t try to set them right but to see them rightly. And to see them rightly you must get rid of some narrow frames of reference, and get out of the feeling of concern.
That is simple, but it is not easy. The power and purpose of affirmative prayer is to align with whatever divine principle will meet, heal and transform a false sense of separation. Thus our purpose for prayer, as Revs. Linda and DeAnn state it becomes: to align myself with the harmonizing power of love and a deeper awareness of oneness with my brother. (p.89, Discover Your Divinity).
As we are more intentional in prayer, our purpose may change and our prayer statement may change. It could become: to align with wisdom and open to discerning what is truly mine to do. As we hold any condition in prayer, we gain greater clarity on both the condition and our purpose in prayer. Allow time for clarity to unfold! Our purpose is what directs and focuses our prayer, and that often changes over time. As we move into the prayer flow of opening, recognizing, integrating, realizing and appreciating, we are speaking from the experience of this energy, not about it. It is an embodied energy and we are open to that Divine prayer energy as it is embodied within us.
First step: Opening….in body, mind, heart and spirit. Sometimes we just have to sit with and notice our un-opened experience of body, mind, heart and spirit in order to embrace the willingness to open. We have lots of opening songs, statements and prayer, but the truth is this is an individual and inside job. It is our own willingness to open to possibilities of how this fractured relationship can be healed within us whether our brother is a part of it or not. Pausing to open to new perspectives, to new ideas and to observe how these land in our mind and heart are all part of this process. Breathing, relaxing and focusing on where in the body we carry the hurt and resentment also helps to discharge the emotion, i.e. every time I think of him I get heartburn, my neck tenses up etc.
When and if you get caught up in remembering and replaying the hurt, breathe in, pause, notice how your body reacts and then exhale as much of the hurt as you are able. This is also a time for the practice of negation right alongside affirmation. Several phrases Revs. Linda and DeAnn suggests are:
In this moment I pause and open my heart. I become still and allow for new understanding.
In this moment, I breathe, consciously placing my attention on something larger than what I currently know.
We are not trying to get God’s attention as if God is an external being, so we do not begin with “Dear God” as though this is a letter making a request. And if we are stuck, and not truly willing to open our mind, heart, body and spirit then we pray for willingness to consciously release our resistance. It might sound like this:
As I quiet my mind and open my heart, I release what has come before and what is coming after. Centered in this now moment, I choose to allow the possibility of a new perspective. I exhale any resistance to this opening, allowing it to dissolve effortlessly. As I inhale into this now moment, I consciously let go of where I have been and open to what is possible.
And then I just wait, and breathe.
When I am ready, I recognize God Is, which is movement two in this prayer process. Even if I am only partially open, there is that small crack in my heart and I invite the whole energy of what God is to land in that small crack. I recognize the love everywhere present, or I recognize God is Power and Strength to stay the course of this healing journey. I recognize that God is Wisdom and Understanding that undergirds all that I experience as I continue in the Opening process. This allow me to shift my energy, even just a little bit toward integrating that Divine energy, that Divine perspective into my consciousness, into my awareness.
In that small opening, I make space for that Divine energy to be realized in my very human self, in my human awareness. As I watch myself, my thoughts, my feelings and notice the reactions in my body, I am beginning to integrate that Divinity that I am into my human experience and awareness. I breathe and remember that in this third AHA movement, I am allowing my humanity to teach me and make real within me my true Divinity. In that Aha moment, I may now realize that every time I say something about my brother, I have a choice about what I say, what I share and what I express. I allow my hurt and feelings to be expressed, but then I allow the healing to also become real within me. That is the I AM of my Divine identity, which expands in my consciousness, and becomes real in my body, mind and spirit.
That is the healing, the forgiveness and the true Joy of realizing my wholeness and true nature, which is true freedom and does not depend on what my brother thinks of me. In The Gospel of Thomas 22:4,7 it is described this way:
When you make the two one, and when you make the inner as the outer and the outer as the inner, and the above as the below, then you will enter the kingdom.
In this prayer journey, we are seeking to manifest more of the Kingdom of God, or consciousness of love in this everyday world and in our mundane everyday life. And thus healing happens for us all. May it be so!
Blessings on the Path,
Rev. Deb Hill-Davis