Prayer

I originally posted this as a comment elsewhere and thought it was worth posting here as well since it probably fell on deaf ears where it was originally posted:

“I found my God in music and the arts, with writers like Hermann Hesse, and musicians like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Little Walter. In some way, in some form, my God was always there, but now I have learned to talk to him."

~Eric Clapton

I grew up in an extremely religious household so prayer was a forced part of my every day life growing up. I wasn't so keen on the prayer at meals or the prayer on our knees, but I did actually enjoy my conversations with God before I fell asleep at night. They were quiet whispers in my head. Even though I had been taught I needed Jesus as a go-between to talk to God, I just dialed up God directly every night anyway. lol My prayer to God gave me a place to talk about things I didn't think I could talk about with anyone else and it carried on well into my 20s.

I'm not sure when it was I stopped praying. I can't tell you when I started to think that maybe there was nothing at all out there. I just know that at a certain point I stopped believing in anything and called myself an atheist.

I think we sometimes have to tear down all of our beliefs so that we can rebuild with a new foundation. I had to get to a point where I believed in nothing so that I could slowly start to discover what my spiritual truths actually are now.

Trauma from my childhood left me disdainful of Christianity. My knee-jerk reaction was to roll my eyes and completely disregard anything remotely christian based.

Fast forward to now and I have come to a new understanding of many things. I see prayer as being a three-fold thing:

1. It can focus intentions and intention is what creates the world around us.
2. It can be that time to talk to our people on the other side...our guides, our loved ones.
3. It can be a time to plug into our God-selves and have a direct line to much needed insights.

I have come to a place where I believe what we call "God" and what we connect to is actually a spark within ourselves since we are all an aspect of Source/God. I sometimes call my God self "my higher self" because I truly believe when we connect to God, it is simply a much bigger part of our spiritual selves.

Photo By Cory Richards

I can now see how certain traditions in Christianity got started...like praying before meals. Again, it is about intention and when you infuse your food with gratitude and give thanks, it actually gives it a boost and makes it higher vibrational. Think of Dr. Masaru Emoto and his work with water and how using different words and phrases actually changed the shape of the water crystals. Gratitude is powerful. I think Yeshua/Jesus understood this and tried to share it with his followers and somewhere along the way the reason behind it got lost. Yeshua was a lot more new age than people realize. I wrote a blog about him recently and what his message actually was should you want to read it.

When We Resist Change

Art by Julie Miller/Haggis Vitae Studios

There are lots of different types of changes that can take place in one's life. Big changes, little changes and changes you don't even realize you have made until one day you suddenly find you are a completely different person.

So many times we hear:

"Change yourself and change the world."

or:

"Be the change you wish to see in the world."

But how many of us are willing to actually go within and change ourselves? I mean REALLY change, not just superficial bullshit. I mean, how many of us are willing to go inside, turn ourselves inside out, face, embrace and tame our shadow selves? How many of us are willing to look at ourselves, our beliefs truthfully and let go of beliefs that no longer serve us? How many of us are willing to embrace new ways of thinking when they are trying to make their way into our consciousness and wake us up?

I was raised to be racist. I was raised to think that being gay was an abomination. I was taught intolerance and hate. It was taught to me from an early age. I was fortunate enough to be presented with different situations and opportunities by the universe to help me change and let go of beliefs that were both untrue and damaging. Life gently knocked on my door by giving me opportunities to change. Most of the time I answered the door and accepted the opportunities that were given to me and, over time, I evolved and changed. It wasn't over night. It was gradual like a river cutting away at a rock.

Sometimes we are stubborn and don't answer the door to change when it comes knocking. It keeps coming back presenting us with different situations. Maybe it just comes by way of people offering new information and you simply reject it over and over. And then the Universe brings it to you again trying to get you to pay attention. When I say "Universe" I really mean our own higher selves because I believe fully that it is ourselves guiding us and bringing certain opportunities into our lives to grow and change.

So, again, you reject the opportunity and fail to answer the door to change. So change says, "Okay, I gave you a gentler route, but now we will play rough" and suddenly shit happens in your life...devastating shit that brings you to your knees. Maybe you will cry out, "Why me?!!!" And I will tell you it is because you didn't answer the door to change when it came knocking, so it came back with a bomb to dismantle your world so that you are forced to rebuild from the foundation up.

A wise person, at this point, would allow the devastation they have suffered to transform them and change them from the inside out, but I have seen plenty of people who just aren't getting the lesson and they suffer blow after blow until they get it. There are some who just never will "get it". There will be some who will wade through the shit until the bitter end of their life. And some will finally embrace and welcome change and become better people as a result.

What will you choose?

Did you hear that?

"While I nodded, 
nearly napping, 
suddenly there came a tapping, 
As of some one gently rapping, 
rapping at my chamber door." 

~Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven