Why Is Prayer a Pain?

Copyright Don Ray 2015

Should prayer be difficult?

Shouldn’t contemplative prayer, connecting with Source, be easy and natural?  If it is not easy, is it our fault?....or the fault of the  noisy world?

Shouldn’t contemplative prayer be the best part of the day, the wonderful and desirable escape to Reality and peace and healing from the day’s maelstrom of demands and madness?

And shouldn’t God and the loving Spirit and the Christos be readily available, responding to our summoning?

Yet contemplative prayer is not easy, not automatic, not simple.

Rote and recited prayer seems too easy.  Mumble or read or project the words, scripted or impromptu, and you have submitted your invoice to God.

But contemplative prayer?......listening as well as talking?......not so easy.

The threat of the refugee crisis.

Many of us would like to think this nation is still a nation of courage and compassion, the “home of the brave”, the “good guys”.

But today’s political campaign has become a contest of cowardice, each candidate trying to show how scared they are of Daesh* and children and families from foreign places. (* Daesh is a pejorative Arabic term for ISIL/ISIS.  I will not use the latter terms because Daesh does not deserve to be referred to as Islamic or as a state.)

Frightened politicians

Impact of refugees

Impact of refugees

On only rare occasions do we safe and well fed actually have to face the injustice, to look into the refugee’s eyes, to see the child being carried by a parent escaping war.  On only rare occasions do we get to ask, have to ask, what will we do for that person, for that child, for that parent.  Often as not we find no satisfactory answer, and we leave the desperate masses on the bridge or shore or sidewalk or shelter, while we return to our comfortable hotel room or home. 

But God help us

More Than Meat

Copyright 2015 Don Ray

Spiritual discussions:  don’t hear many of those in the workplace or locker room.  In fact, I do not recall many deeply personal spiritual discussions in church either.

In the modern, western world, “spiritual” discussion too often means nothing remotely personal, but more a political bludgeoning to convince the other person they are wrong.  Little wonder spiritual topics are taboo in polite company.  As for spiritual discussions in church and temple, what if your deeply personal spiritual experience is not exactly like everyone else’s, and worse, what if it is not in perfect lockstep alignment with authority and doctrine?!  No, church, temple, and mosque are no place for deeply intimate, spiritual expression.

Then there are various shamanic, new agey, ancient cum ultra-modern gatherings, but in those you better tow the line and not dare mention your traditional, doctrinal, monotheistic beliefs.

Meaningful, deep, complex, profound, open, personal, intimate, tolerant, welcome, accepting spiritual conversation….wow!….Wouldn’t that be great?!…..to talk about, and listen to, that which makes you more than meat?!

Temporally Senseless

Copyright 2016 Don Ray

Maybe after recent thefts I better understand Yeshu (Jesus) saying “the guy takes your cloak, give him your coat too”.

It is a great attitude, and it has not just to do with love and generosity as usually taught. It reflects a way of going through life, a realistic awareness that in this human world some people will try to steal from you, and your only choice and control is over your response to that situation. How much will you let it matter? Clearly I have a long way to go in that regard.

Yeshu’s radical statement, like so many of His radical statements, makes no sense in human terms because

Personalized Scripture

Copyright 2015 Don Ray

I think back on this week’s Lectionary study group meeting.

It is evident that the study of scripture is not to ferret out absolute, unequivocal meaning from verses and chapters.

Were it only that simple, by now all the meaning would have been long ago squeezed out and the vintage distilled from the fruit of the scripture, and we would simply have to choose from among a variety of expert opinions, seeking

The Antithetical Societal Solution

Copyright 2016 Don Ray

Can it be?!  A quiet Saturday morning at home alone?!  ‘Tasha holding me in the chair by the patio door as snow lightly falls?!  Oh joy, oh joy!  How many lifetimes have passed since I experienced this sublime joy!  And I experience it now only because of a wicked bad cold that I do not want others to catch. 

But oh this long forgotten, blessed morning state of mind and spirit!  Oh joy, long missed joy!  Unhurried!  Quiet!  Unpressured!  All because of a cold and a purring ‘Tasha kitty. 

‘Tasha also celebrates this rare, rare moment of quiet at home on a Saturday morning.  Such a blessing!

Ahhh, an unhurried morning….such a curse that such an experience should so rarely bless the modern man and woman.
I get to scruff a purring ‘Tasha kitty!  Thank You!  Thank You!  Thank You!...for the cold that made this possible!
Such joys and life await in contemplation!

How impoverished the life always busy, active, moving!