Midweek Faith Lift
November 13, 2024
Your Prayer Style & Vocabulary
Rev. Deb Hill-Davis
Facebook Posting
November 4, 2024
Corey Sayers
August 13, 2023
A pastor asked an older farmer, decked out in bib overalls, to say grace for the morning breakfast.
"Lord, I hate buttermilk", the farmer began. The visiting pastor opened one eye to glance at the farmer and wonder where this was going.
The farmer loudly proclaimed, "Lord, I hate lard." Now the pastor was growing concerned.
Without missing a beat, the farmer continued, "And Lord, you know I don't much care for raw white flour". The pastor once again opened an eye to glance around the room and saw that he wasn't the only one to feel uncomfortable.
Then the farmer added, "But Lord, when you mix them all together and bake them, I do love warm fresh biscuits. So Lord, when things come up that we don't like, when life gets hard, when we don't understand what you're saying to us, help us to just relax and wait until you are done mixing. It will probably be even better than biscuits. Amen."
What a great illustration of how prayer is uniquely powerful and relevant, especially when it is grounded in the now moment. I can almost smell those biscuits, can’t you? I usually write my talks on Tuesday, and as we all know, this past Tuesday was Election Day. Not surprisingly, I found it challenging to concentrate and stay focused. So today, we are going to enjoy a number of stories from a variety of sources to get grounded into our own prayer language. As Revs. Linda and Dee Ann note, there is no wrong way to pray….albeit some ways are more effective than others.
Last week our exploration was about the truth that when we pray with or for others, we are always praying from our own consciousness and it is critical for us to recognize where we are in our own consciousness. In his book, The Universe is Calling, Eric Butterworth reflects on how important this is on p. 117. He writes:
One person said to me, “I spend all my time praying for my loved ones, and I love it, but it is exhausting.” But the truth is, if you are exhausted by prayer, the ego is involved, and you are praying in human consciousness. There is no way you can be drained by any spiritual effort, if you know “It is not I, but the Christ within that does the work”…..Actually if you are praying aright, in the process of letting the healing power flow through you, you are infilling yourself…….True prayer is not exhausting, ever.
The deeper reality here is the true power of words and my experience is that words spoken in prayer hold enormous power, even though that power may not be realized or “made real” until long after the prayer is spoken, sometimes even years. What is true is that the most critically important element in prayer is to understand where we are in consciousness because that impacts the words we say in prayer and the actual energy that they hold. If this election has taught us anything at all, it is the truth about the energy of words to make life positive and constructive for all, not just a few. Words do matter and how they are said matters!
Charles Fillmore especially recognized this in what he wrote in his book, Christian Healing:
Every time we speak we cause the atoms of the body to tremble and change their places. Not only do we cause the atoms of our own body to change their position, but we raise or lower the vibration and otherwise affect the bodies of others with whom we come in contact.
Words are activated in the body through the subconscious mind. Charles Fillmore did not know what psychologists now have learned. Your subconscious mind does not know that the words you may speak about someone else, both positive and negative, are not about you! The point is to realize that we will say negative words about someone else, because that is our human experience. What is also critical to this process is that our observer self notices this and does not attach to it. We express our feelings and let them pass without judgment. That, too, is part of our human experience, which is also part of our prayer process.
One of the ways that I stay grounded in addition to prayer and meditation is to read poetry. I started that during the start of the Covid pandemic in April 2020 and it continues to be a source of inspiration and spiritual nourishment for me. The prayers I share each Sunday from Rich Orloff are actually poetry as are all the great formal prayers that we learn. As we contemplate where we are in consciousness and we fully claim our spiritual power and authority, we pray in the active voice, claiming wisdom, power, strength, life and will, the power to choose. It is often the language of poetry that sheds light and brings clarity to our choices. I want to share with you the following from Spiritual Passages until I found the prayer/story about the biscuits:
Spiritual Passages
November 1, 2024
Poetry Prescription Pharmacy
'Words become the Spirit's hands'
What’s the cure for a broken heart? What about for grief, anxiety, or loneliness? For those visiting the Poetry Pharmacy in London, such are the questions that are on their minds. The company offers tonics to those sorts of emotional ailments. Calm, comfort, inspiration: whatever you’re searching for, there’s a book of poetry, philosophy or psychology to help you find it. From the metaphysical poets to the romantics, poetry has long had the ability to speak to parts of our soul. When prose fails, often only verse has the answer, says Poetry Pharmacy founder Deb Alma.
With its expansive library of brightly colored books, the Poetry Pharmacy is every poetry fan’s dream. Alma knows that lyrical writing alone won’t cure anyone of life’s greatest traumas. Instead, the store serves as a pastiche of the idea that words cure all. The centerpiece is a rich mahogany cabinet containing small glass bottles labelled with various emotions: love, invigoration, a rainbow-colored pride. Some are more tongue-in-cheek. There are pills for dithering and existential angst, while a glass flask sat atop reads, "Serenity: Keep out of reach of children."
It is also true that what prayer does and poetry does is open our hearts to a new
awareness, a greater understanding, a higher consciousness. And then this is what happens, also from Spiritual Passages, November 1, 2024
"The pupil comes to the rebbe (Hassidic Rabbi) and asks, "Why does the Torah tell us to 'place these words upon your hearts?' Why does it not tell us to place these holy words in our hearts?" The rebbe answers, "It is because, when our hearts are closed, we cannot place holy words in our hearts. So we place them on top of our hearts, and there they stay until, one day, the heart breaks, and the words fall in.'"
I shared earlier that sometimes it takes many years the answer to prayer to become evident. This was true in my own story in that when my parents divorced in 1967, I prayed for my mom to stop drinking. She did not, and died of alcoholism in 1976. In 1989, I was the same age as my mom when I too faced divorce, and despite the pain etc. I did NOT start drinking. Instead I found 12-steps for Adult Children of Alcoholics and Unity and my life started getting better. It took me awhile to realize that my prayers for my mom were actually answered in my own life many, many years later.
And finally, I want to share Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation:
Seeking the Public Good, Nov. 2, 2024
Courage Changes Things
Embodiment teacher and therapist Prentis Hemphill names courage as an essential element for positive change:
As we look at the world around us, it is clear that we need large-scale change. But it will not happen without risking something of ourselves, perhaps by seeing ourselves honestly, by stepping up to lead, by speaking out, by feeling discomfort as we move outside our usual patterns. We shape change in such moments and transform ourselves in the process. Courage changes things and courage changes us. It’s how we become. I have found that there is a “right-sized” fear inside any vision for change, and in taking courageous action we develop a part of ourselves that can talk back to and hold the fear without letting it lead. Guided—and inspired—by what we care about, we become able to express our courage and act.
The courage we need is the courage to fail and stay. The courage to reimagine every aspect of our social relations. The courage to relinquish grasping what was and build piece by piece a new structure for how and what we produce. The courage to exit the safety of our dying delusions. The courage to reach for one another. The courage to be honest. The courage to ask questions. The courage to listen. The courage to feel uncomfortable. The courage to be a part of the circle, to be fed by and to feed. The courage to surrender. The courage to know when our time is over and our roles have shifted. The courage to love and be loved….
When we are courageous, we can do the unexpected and start to mold the world around a vision bigger than one produced by fear. Every inch of progress, every ounce of love, every truly meaningful action from here on out will happen through courage, not comfort.
Blessings on the Path,
Rev. Deb