Prayer Magic

Affirmation:  I pray unceasingly.  

Do you pray?  How do you pray?  Are your prayers silent or out loud?  Do you only pray when you go to church?  How about before meals?  Maybe you only pray before meals in your home, never out in public?  Maybe your prayers are only in the evening before bedtime, like some of us were trained to do as a child.  Maybe you make up your own words, or maybe you only use the rote prayers of your faith.  As you can see there are many forms of prayers, some might even say their best prayer is when they are on the golf course or watching a football game.  “God, help me get over this water!"  "Lord, please be with our team today."  Some wouldn’t even use the name of God.  Perhaps, their faith won’t allow that or perhaps their faith leads them to only a universal concept like, the Divine or the Holy.  Of course, we also have those people who don’t believe in prayer at all and think it a waste of their time.  This may not be the blog they will want to read.  That’s ok.  I believe they are praying every time they send their energy out into the world with their thoughts, or into their bodies with their intentions.  

As part of my Spiritual Direction training I read, "Ron DelBene’s Breath of Life Series: A Simple Way to Pray (The Jesus Prayer). I don't know why but I didn't expect much of this reading but  I had a list of monthly assignments and this was one of the choices.  It seems I am quite good at mis-judging what may or may not resonate with me and once again I was wrong; wrong, wrong, and wrong!  

If you’ve been following this blog, you already know that I am a great believer in the power of prayer.  I actually pray all day and I have lots of tools to help me with that.  I have all those memorized prayers most Catholics learn as children and several I’ve memorized as an adult.  I have the one I wrote myself that I occasionally use before I journal.  I have the Rosary which I always say as I walk the lake and if not then, during some quiet time in the afternoon or before Mass.  I have Sunday Mass and if I were really disciplined, I’d have daily Mass. Sometimes it’s as simply as doing an Ujayi yoga breath and adding the name of Jesus.  So you see, I’m pretty immersed in a prayer.  

At one point at the Haden SD training, we were handed a picture of a tree and the title was "Contemplative Practices."  There are several branches: stillness, generative, creative, activist, relational, movement and ritual/cyclical.  It would appear according to this diagram that almost any form of activity can fall into a contemplative category as long as one is wholly present to their actions.  I’m sure that’s true but I still feel most of us will benefit from finding a way to silence and stillness rather than trying to focus while on the move.  It’s a busy noisy world out there and "in here" and to take some time and just be, can be life changing.  In fact, it has now been scientifically proven that the part of brain that deals with stress, changes with meditation and we experience less tension and anxiety. 

Ron DelBene’s book was for me like discovering a magic lamp, with a genie inside.  The genie popped out and I was asked to make a wish, only one.  Oh, what was so important to me that I would want to focus on it all the time?  He suggests you find a short phrase that you use as an all-day prayer.  He recommends it be around six words or so.  You then repeat it throughout your entire day.  You can say it at a red light, standing in line, waiting in a doctor’s office, walking to your employment, in the shower.  Anywhere, anytime is the perfect time.  You rub the magic lamp and you actually ask, "God, what prayer would best serve our relationship?"  You take some of that quiet time I just mentioned and you listen.  What phrase comes to mind?  For now, that’s the prayer.  Sure, you can change it.  You can tweak it but for now, own the words that you have been gifted.  Breathe in, deep breath and let them settle into your heart and your spirit.  Give the prayer a few days to take root and the be prepared for when it begins to blossom.  That’s when you’ll know the "genie" has heard your one wish and it is being manifested.  The prayer isn’t for anyone or anything other than yourself.  Selfish, you think?  Remember the Prayer of Saint Francis?  "Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me."  Until we change ourselves to be centered in the gifts of the Holy; love, joy, peace, hope, compassion and generosity, nothing outside of us will ever change.  Let God take up full time residence within, you only need ask, and then throw away that lamp because now the miracle of finding God within will bring about the miracle of revealing God without and I believe life will never again be the same.  

Give it a try.  If you like, write me and share your prayer and anything else that manifests from your newest practice.

"Holy Spirit, fill me with Your pure love."

Please Pray - by Jean Costa

Please pray for me

Please pray for her

Please pray for him

Please pray for them

Of course, I answer

I will, I say

I’ll add you to my list, I write

It’s my honor, I respond

Why, I think?

Will it help, I query? 

For what, I question?

How, I ponder?

Our Father, I begin

Hail Mary, I plead

Holy Spirit, I invite

Angles and guides, I request

I wake with a prayer

I walk in prayer

I sit for prayer 

I fall asleep with prayer 

Am I praying for them?

Am I praying for her?

Am I praying for him?

Am I praying for me?

How do I feel?

Does it make a difference?

Does it soothe the world?

Does it create healing?

But I believe

Yes, I believe

Truly, I believe

Surely. I believe

I pray for her 

I pray for him

I pray for them

I pray for you

I pray for hope

I pray for healing 

I pray for strength 

I pray for love 

Those I know

Those who have asked

Those who have been asked for

Those I have never met

I pray for me

I pray for family & friends

I pray for all the support people in my life

I pray for all my communities

I pray for my church

I pray for my country

I pray for our world leaders

I pray for those who have no one to pray for 

And, I send out those prayers 

I send them with hope and faith

I send them out and let them rest within

Away they go....blessing the earth

And, I trust, that I am that powerful

I trust, I can change the world

I trust, my efforts to love and not to judge

I trust, I am making a difference

No, not on my own but with 

God, the Divine, my Lord, Mother Mary 

With all our angles and guides

I pray my heart will be known 

And I trust my prayers are answered

.

A Safer World

Affirmation:  The world is safer than we believe it to be.

She didn’t phrase the affirmation in the positive, so I had to re-wright it.  She actually said, “The world is not as dangerous as we imagine it to be.”  She was backpacking through So. Africa.  She was crossing the border from Zimbabwe into Botswana.  She was all alone, no travel buddy along and she would be spending the night in a camp site, somewhere about which she knew very little.  “Will you be in a tent?” I asked.  She didn’t know.  She appeared to be in her early thirties and while I was dressed to be sure the mosquitos didn’t find a free square inch on me, she was in a tank top and shorts.  Her name was Anya.  I told her she was one of my newest heroines.  I have many but she was definitely the latest and I was so pleased to meet her, to share a little time with her and to learn from her.  “The world is not as dangerous as we imagine it to be.”  I felt like someone had opened a door in a stuffy, small room,  Yes, I was in So. Africa too.  I had only been here a few days when we were traveled to Chobe to cruise the river and ride through the jungle to see lions and giraffes and elephants and whatever other exotic creatures chose to show themselves.  I, however was with a buddy, Susan Auman and we had hired a guide to help facilitate the transfer across the border.  I was in awe of Anya.  

This was towards the end of our trip.  

It can be hard to imagine the world as safe.  The news is so gruesome most days.  It is the focus of the media and it leaves many feeling anxious and afraid.  Fear can be useful.  We are genetically wired to use fear as a warning system but when we always are in a “flight or fight” response, it becomes debilitating, cortisol levels rise and our systems are overloaded.  

Susan and I had already visited Cairo.  We had seen the pyramids, the Sphinx and visited mosques and several holy sites where the Holy Family had lived, according to the legends told.  We had also sailed the Nile and visited temples as old as three thousand plus years old.  (We had used some toilets that we were sure were just as old. Toilette paper was handed out by the sheet and that only with the payment of a dollar or more.) We had danced and hiked and rode in a hot air balloon over the desert but I still wasn’t sure if the world was more or less dangerous than I imagined but I was beginning to see the world differently, more like Anya.  

We were traveling during Lent and finishing our Egypt segment at the end of Holy Week.  Egypt is 80 percent Muslim and I was feeling very unsure about our journey.  I always wear a small cross necklace and I just wasn’t sure how advisable that was.  I took the cross off for a few days but I felt very uncomfortable without it and so, I put it back on.  I once read a story about a man who decided to wear a large (I don’t know how large.) wooden cross around his neck for Lent.  He was fairly sure people would react to his new pendant, he just didn't know how they would react.  Imagine his surprise when no one reacted at all.  His decision to wear the cross was a very brave statement.  The only thing that mattered was how it made him feel.  That’s how I felt about wearing my little necklace.  The good news is no one reacted to it, positively or negatively but it was very important to me to openly claim my faith.  I felt very brave. 

So. Africa was a very different environment than Egypt.  I fell in love with the people.  We arrived and were eventually met by Sindy.  He was definitely one of the highlights of our travel.  Actually, for me, meeting the people wherever we went was the most fun.  Whoever we met, we were greeted warmly and courteously.  Susan and I did always present with a smile and I think that’s a universal language.  Very seldom was there not a response in kind.  

We had both prayed that God would send his angels ahead to pave the path with grace, ease, compassion and love and I must say, we were in awe of how well our travels went.  When met by our last tour representative we knew our prayers had definitely been answered.  His name was Blessing.  The names of the people we met in Victoria Falls were inspiring.  One of our waiters was named Tadiwa. He told us it meant, “We are loved.”  I asked him if it were true and he said, “yes” he was loved.  Sindy’s wife’s name is Simangaliso.  Her name means, “Great wonder” and according to Sindy, she is.  

Sindy had stories galore for us.  His enthusiasm for the falls was contagious.  As we walked the path to the Danger Point and the Devil’s Pool, he quoted Livingston.  “These are signs so wonderful that the angels must have gazed upon them in their flight.”  As we were leaving, this unassuming, gentle man he told us one last tale about being invited to speak in 2015 at the “Be the Change Conference” in Atlanta, GA.  It was his first time to fly and when he arrived, he spoke to five thousand people about helping women develop their own businesses because they are the mothers who nurture our future. 

The quality of the So. African people I found most striking was how they looked you right in the eye.  When you asked them how they were, they would always smile and engage you in a way that I found to be endearing and unusual.  

“The world is not as dangerous a place as we imagine it to be.” I am so grateful to my friend, Susan, for inviting me to join her on this pilgrimage.  Her desire to see and experience the world and her willingness to share it with me, dragged me out of fear and into love.  It’s not the first time she has led me this way.  It was she who led me to walk the Camino in 2017.  I can fall into fear very easily but she reminds me that “Courage is fear that has said its prayers.”  We said our prayers and then stepped out into a whole new world.  She would tell me periodically that “You knew you weren’t in Kansas any longer,” when you had warthogs on the front lawn, elephants crossing the road, baboons climbing out of inn windows and monkeys waiting to steal your breakfast.  We were in a different world and I had conquered my fears, again.  It’s a gift I gave myself. It’s keeping me excited and enthusiastic about life, about the future, about our future.  It’s a reminder of a phrase I heard while at the Haden Institute, “God loves me exactly as I am but She loves me too much to leave me there.”  Thank you, God!  Thank you, Susan.