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April 29th, 2024

4/29/2024

Recently someone asked me about my call to pray for people. 'What do you do to respond to that call?' My response was to share what I believe I 'should' do, and what helps me have some sense that: yes, I am praying for others, I am making a difference.
Here are some rambling thoughts, in no precise order, and nothing that I do all the time, but try to keep it as a daily practice. Prayer is like that; we know when we're on the right track because we believe we are reaching God. We don't look for the 'right' results; we trust that all is well. And say, Amen.
• Spend time--morning, noon, and night praying, meditation, reading--pray without ceasing!
• Write down names--pray a long list daily and a short list, which I call The List, throughout the day
• Centering Prayer
• The Jesus Prayer
• Bible reading and Lection Divina
• Clear my mind of mental clutter--gossip, the news
• Clear my calendar of clutter
• Take care of my health

Called to pray for people

8/6/2023

We have many ways to pray for people--lift up their names….tell God exactly what we want God to do … and everything in between. Theologically this is called intercessory prayer, but the term feels too formal, too impersonal, too privileged, too….
For me to say, "I am called to be an intercessor," sounds highfalutin--a call that suggests vain glory, not a God call which, by its very nature is humbling and replete with mercy.
Occasionally I tell people, "I feel called to pray for people." But not often because the call is in the doing between God and me, not in any proclamation to the world. It is not a job, such as teaching . It is between God and me, and sometimes I feel called to let people know I am doing it. Fine, but that's not part of the call.

Keep praying

5/2/2023

I'm still working on this idea about praying for specific results, as in praying for healing, which I wrote about the other day. In church on Sunday someone asked for prayers that a the doctor find the right medicine and procedure for a friend with cancer. On it goes. We all have specific requests, as it should be, because we lead our lives trying to figure out the best answer to everything. So why not ask God to join us in that?
Sometimes when I ask for what I want, I feel that I have let go of my faith, which 'should' be Thy will be done. Then I say to myself, "Oh, what a mess you are making of this. Get out of your head!" On it goes. Well, at least God is present. So why not thank God for that?
And then there is St. Paul's Pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5.17), which suggests many possibilities and freeing me up to keep praying.

Pray as Jesus prayed

4/26/2023

"I'm going to pray for complete healing. Why not?" wrote a friend whose husband has dementia.
"Why not!" I wrote back, and thus I began--and am still praying. "Why not!' Jesus did, and we have examples of his success. And besides, isn't that one of the ways to follow Jesus?

What to pray for; how to pray--so many question as we grapple with what prayer is. No perfect answer, and so we go ahead as best we can. Maybe that's what 'Thy will be done' means. However we pray is God's will. Today God's will is for me to pray for complete healing. Yesterday it was for peace to surround a person. Tomorrow? God knows, God's will will be done.

Praying for physical and emotional healing

3/14/2023

Thank you for your prayers for my friend. All went well, although there is pain, and a long road to independence ahead for her. It was easy to pray for her healing and for the things to go well with surgeon and nursing staff. Praying for physical healing is just that. Of course, a prayer for things notto go well would be no prayer at all!
So what about prayers for mental healing? Like me, I'm sure you have people on your prayer list who are lost and suffering emotionally. Other than wanting them to be released from that pain, what do we pray for? How specific might we be? My prayer for them is less about specifics, and more about lifting them to the light and 'letting go and letting God." In the weeks and months to come, I will be including that kind of prayer for my friend.

My on-going prayer challenge

11/17/2022

There is a great deal to say about prayer; there is very little to say about prayer. Both are true!
   Sometimes when I start writing for this blog, I tell myself, “Oh, come on, you’ve said that before. They know that!”
   So why do I even continue? Why not add to ‘daily quotes’ and ‘word & image’ and leave it at that? Because, I’m still pondering this God mystery, this prayer mystery. I say the Jesus Prayer; I accept that prayer makes a difference, that God loves everyone, that my life is grace-filled, that our faith deepens when we read and ponder scripture, that I am called to pray for people….
   But all those come from my mind. The prayer challenge is for them to move to my heart, which is where prayer is, where God is, where love resides and where it can rise for others to feel.

Praying for those estranged

11/12/2022

My prayer book contains several categories: friends and family, groups that I’m connected with (i.e. church), those grieving, those struggling with addiction… There is also has a category for people estranged from one other, which usually means family members. It is a list filled with sadness. Usually I don’t tell friends that I praying for their loved one, for them, or for the situation. For the efficiency of the prayer, they don’t need to know.
But sometimes I tell that I am praying for their ‘lost’ loved one, which is what I did recently. My friend’s response, “Oh, I’m so glad someone is praying for him.” My friend is alone and so is her estranged grown child. I’m praying for them both, heart to heart, no judgment, just love.

Prayer cues

6/11/2022

I haven’t posted in the last few weeks but I have been praying, which seems like the most satisfying, comforting and hopeful thing I can do these days. I start the day with good intentions but then life happens and I get distracted. But then, I get called back. It has to be God doing the calling because I know I’m too self-involved to take much credit. And yet, I do believe that God is giving me a say in this prayer life of mine; God does not have robots! Rather I (all of us) am called to co-create with God.
I have my cues (I’d use the word triggers except I’m trying to stay away from war metaphors) to help me remember God; my meditation time which has become hardwired into my life; my little post-it prayer list that I write each day; the Jesus prayer that arises from my subconscious; and my daily walk.
What signals do you have in your life to remind you to pray and lift yourself from worry and despair that arises when you think human kind, including yourself, is running the show?

Praying scripture

4/5/2022

Peter Paul Rubens

Lectio Divina is a popular, traditional way to study scripture. A Google search offer the following:

Traditionally, Lectio Divina has four separate steps: read; meditate; pray; contemplate. First a passage of scripture is read, then its meaning is reflected upon. This is followed by prayer and contemplation on the Word of God.

This process, which is laborious, time consuming, and intellectual, usually doesn’t fulfill my needs. When I go through the process I might feel ready to write paper for a divinity class, but I don’t feel prayerful, more loving, or closer to God, which is what I desire.
Here is another, and clearly a simpler way to pray scripture, offered by the student minister at church on Sunday.

Read a scripture.
Ask where you see God in it.
Ask where you see yourself in it.

That’s it. Give it a try.

Praying to let go of fear

2/23/2019

I’m back again, grappling with the news. What am I grappling with? Fear.
    Fear, the title of Bob Woodward’s recent book, sums up whose fear I’m talking about. Everyone’s! Trump’s and all his allies; me and all who are of my persuasion.
    I know that I can only manage my own fear, but how can I do that when I hear of hate talk that includes guns?
      “It’s all about guns, stupid,” I tell myself. But does that mean I get a gun, fight fire with fire, fight guns with guns?
     No! As a Christian, I know better than that.
     Thankfully, after acknowledging my fear, God appears and I hear, “It’s all about love, stupid.”
     I pray that I can pray for my enemies, which means praying that love enters everyone. Everyone includes those with guns, and people like me, who aren’t violent in physical ways, but who are violent in their judgments and in their anger of those who doesn’t agree with us.