This morning I woke up with overwhelming gratitude for this beautiful sunrise, for family and friends, health, life possibilities, for all the grace in my life. I try to do something every day for someone else. Up here at the cottage it is often just an email, but I can hear my mom telling tell me that is good enough for the moment. I still think of her during her last days, doing what was good enough for the moment, smiling at people as they walked by her wheelchair.
This morning I woke up with overwhelming gratitude for this beautiful sunrise, for family and friends, health, life possibilities, for all the grace in my life. I try to do something every day for someone else. Up here at the cottage it is often just an email, but I can hear my mom telling tell me that is good enough for the moment. I still think of her during her last days, doing what was good enough for the moment, smiling at people as they walked by her wheelchair.
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I have four close friends on my prayer list this morning, who, as I type here on the deck of my cottage by the sea, are in the midst of crisis’s. Two are in surgery, one for breast cancer, another for a knee replacement; one just went to the ER with low blood pressure; a fourth friend called last night grieving over the sudden death of his wife of 53 years. By the very nature of my call to pray for people, I get just that—people to pray for; by the very practice of keeping a daily prayer list, I get just that—a list of people to pray for. But four intense, immediate ones is more than usual. In fact usually I don’t personally know all the people on my list. Until the right time to visit, thank God for the telephone and email as a way to keep up. Thank God for the time I have at the cottage to pray--time to empty my head of the chatter that gets in the way of prayer, and then I just need time to pray. When someone asks me what I do at the cottage all day, I’m a little reluctant to add praying to my list that includes reading, writing, walking, watching the sunrise and the ocean, and doing a jigsaw puzzle. Sometimes I quickly add, “praying and meditating” with the intention of glossing over the prayer part. Not naming prayer is a dishonest by omission. “Why do I do this?” I ask myself. Here’s today’s answer: so I won’t be misunderstood; so I won’t get into a discussion; so I won’t turn people off. My reasons are valid, but lately it seems that I want to be a little more honest about my journey. Tomorrow I’m having lunch with a friend who undoubtedly will ask some form of the question, “What do you do all day at the cottage?” I’m going to include praying to my list of activities and see what response I get. If I’m asked for further explanation, I’ll reply with something like this: “It seems to me that we all are searching for deep meaning in our lives, and prayer is one of the ways I go about it.” I realize that my answer is weak, but it’s a start. I’ll let you know how it goes. I’ve been thinking about worry and what I can do about. I’m sure you know what I mean; we do it all the time, even though we know it is not God’s desire for us. Lately I’ve been trying to catch my worry early on and pray for calm no matter what the storm. This snow storm was one of those times. Worry One: that I would arrive at the cottage to discover that the driveway had not been plowed. Worry Two: that it would be impossible to shovel myself into the house. I decided to have several prayers going about it. Prayer One: that I would stop thinking about all the possible problems that could arise. Prayer Two: that I would deal rationally with whatever was waiting for me. Prayer Three: that I would see all the blessings waiting for me and be grateful. Well, there wasn’t even any practical need to worry. Instead, easy gratitude was waiting for me as I pulled into the carefully plowed driveway. Ten minutes of shoveling and I was in the warm cottage. With God’s grace, I remembered to be grateful. All my prayers were answered; hopefully I have a new pattern going. I’ve been reading, “The Sermon on the Mount: The Key to Success,” by Emmet Fox, published in 1934, and renewed by HarperColins in 1989. Today the book offered this little gem, “Handle your problems spiritually.” Sounds so obvious. That’s what we people of faith do. Or do we? I realize that without even being aware of it, I slip into categorizing my problems; those I give to God and those I decide to solve myself. Spending so much time at the cottage make this duality particularly apparent. Here, accompanied by the sunrise, I center myself with God; on the beach, I walk and talk with God; at twilight I give thanks to God. Although I do email, I don’t watch TV and rarely do I talk on the phone or see anyone. God handles my problems with ease—my ease that is. On the other hand, when I’m home, leading the usual everyday life that most of us experience, I push God to the side--not consciously of course. It’s just that my analytic, problem solving mind, in excellent shape and fine tuned from years of experience, takes over. I act like the sole player of a professional sport’s team out to win the championship. I like to think that this time at the cottage by the sea is helping me play full time on God’s team; I believe it is. I am aware that the time here is a blessing, a gift from God. But switching teams doesn’t have to take all the sunrises that I experience, although a few days in solitude sure do help us handle our problems spiritually. Thus, my prayer is that people reading my blogs will be blessed with their own sunrises, beaches and twilights. Making time and finding the right space is a great way to start handling your problems spiritually. It can be done: ask God. At the cottage I never turn on the TV. I could, but I don’t. At home I often watch The News Hour. The other evening, however, I turned it off. I didn’t want any more details of the killings; I didn’t want any more analysis about gun control. Please don’t misunderstand me. I know all this has to be done, but not for the role I feel called to play. Details and analysis are counterproductive (to use a worldly term) to my prayer. The more silent and simple I become, the clearer God can hear my prayer for love, which I believe is the prayer of everyone--the church-goer, the upright citizen, the helpful, the helpless, the mentally ill, everyone. We all want the unconditional love that is God; that is what I am praying for. I’m here at the cottage praying that I’m doing what God’s wants of me, praying that I will keep hearing God, etc., etc. etc. “Too much talk,” I tell myself. I think I should be here, but I also feel I am letting people down at church. We are helping drive an elderly couple to their doctor appointments, and I’m not there to take my turn or to fill in for last minute requests. “How will they ever do without me?” I ask…. “Um, there’s my ‘savior complex’ appearing again.” I’m not writing this expecting any of you to come up with the answer for me. Rather, I’m writing to give you an idea about how someone thinks and prays through with this kind of spiritual dilemma, for I trust that most of you reading this go through something same but different. I write this blog so that you and I are not alone in this on this faith journey. Hearing someone else’s mental chatter might help you along the way, and if nothing else it sure helps me to put it out there. So here’s where things stand at the moment. 1) I’ve taken care of any logistics I can about the rides; 2) I’ve turned off my email for the day; 3) I’ve taken most of the morning for prayer and meditation--centering prayer and have prayed my prayer list; 4) I’m about to walk the beach, doing my best to stay in the present moment. I’m here at the cottage, my first full day, It feels like one, big, all-encompassing prayer. It being my life here. No need to be specific. As the saying goes, It just is. And yet there are some specifics, some insights that my prayer is hearing and offering. Most importantly, this sense of prayer is all grace; not of my doing, this being here at the cottage, this being called to pray for people. I try to be attentive to God’s call, but that’s the most I can say about my part in it. The experience is humbling and awesome. What I am hearing is that God wants me here, just being. God wants me just like that so I can pray for others, others who have extremely busy, complicated and sometimes tragic lives, who need an ‘outside’ prayer and prayer person. I often think of prayer as ‘holding’, holding the pain, frenzy, stress, you name it, for others so they can get through the day, through their life. Prayer lightens the burden, makes one feel not alone, shines light in darkness. I have had my times when I needed holding. I believe that it was there although at the time I wasn’t usually aware of the who, when or where of it. That didn’t seem to be important. So now, today, I have a list of people and situations I’m praying for. Some of recipients know, but most have no idea that I’m praying for them. It’s a grace-filled calling. I’m very grateful that I will be returning for my fourth winter at the cottage by the sea. I heard from the owner the other day, and he and I agreed that we are ready for another win-win season. On my cottagebythesea.net blog, which is for people who are looking for silence, solitude and simplicity and who sometimes like to be alone, I write about my general experiences there. I DO NOT talk specifically about faith and prayer; that’s what this blog is about. So here I am, two months before I start spending week days at the cottage and weekends at home, musing on what my prayer life will be like this year. I envision myself watching the sky and water from before sunrise to after sunset. That won’t be new, but the amount of time I spend just sitting in the mystery will be longer and more frequent than previous years. |
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