Issue No. 6

What is prayer and how does it work?

My definition of prayer has evolved through the years. When I was growing up in a fundamental Christian church I was taught that prayer was a certain set of words spoken in a "revenant" tone of voice and each prayer had a beginning a middle and an end. In fact, the end was very important, and, if spoken incorrectly might result in the whole prayer being ignored.

I became an adult and moved into a charismatic church. They taught me to cry and anguish with each pleading word to a God that loved me, but to get his attention, I had to really work hard to be heard. I wasn't sure why I had to be in anguish when I begged and pleaded, but somehow I knew that if I just prayed hard enough, loud enough and long enough, then I would somehow find favor with God and he would grant me my wish. If He didn't, then I just hadn't done all of those things enough.

I then grew into an awareness that God might not even be a man! That was a shocker! I grew to understand the depth of this idea, or lack thereof. <blushing smile> I began to hear words such as meditation and stillness. I was terrified of meditation at first, having been taught that anything other than what I was doing was not only wrong but a terrible risk to my soul.

I courageously kept asking questions and eventually began to understand prayer as speaking to God, and mediation as listening to God. That felt good in my heart. I now felt like I had a tiny grasp on actually having a deep connection or even a relationship with God.

As I continued my journey I have discovered that my relationship with God is like breathing. I speak, I listen, He/She speaks and He/She listens. I now understand there is no need to anguish, beg or plead. I know this within my own being because "God is Love" and I believe this Love is Unconditional Love. To mean that means there are no conditions, no need to prove or demonstrate my sincerity in my request. My wishes are honored simply because I am who I am.

Let's back up a bit now to talk about how prayer may "work". Some of us have been taught to pray for a certain result. If we get that result, we might think "God has heard me and answered my prayers because He truly loves me." Even as a kid I used to hear these kinds of phrases and wondered what God was doing if I didn't get what I wanted when I prayed. Did that mean he didn't love me?

I like to think of our prayers as simply letting our wishes be known, without assigning good feelings to one answer and bad feelings to another. I don't think we have THAT much control over what God does or doesn't do because we ask for a certain outcome. We can learn from everything that happens in our lives. Neither experience is good and neither experience is bad. Each experience is a container for a different set of lessons.

As a kid I used to wonder what conflict God must be in when farmers would pray for rain because their crops were dying without water, and then the kids would be praying that it stops raining because they want to go out and play. God can't win! If he makes it rain, then the kids think they are being punished, if he doesn't make it rain, the farmers think they are being punished.

In my imagination I see an image, from the Angels' point of view, looking down on Earth. Prayers look like little lightening bugs of all different colors. They are beautiful, because each prayer holds a kernel of pure Love. That Love is the Light in each prayer. There are no ugly prayers, no bad prayers, just prayers. Prayers are messages, they are how we connect with God, the Angels, the Universe.

The more we connect to God/Goddess/Creator without the need to control the outcome, the brighter the Light is. The more Light the prayer emanates, the more Light it attracts. In other words, the more we can let go of our own agenda for the outcome, the more room we give the Universe to answer our connection in whatever works best for everyone concerned. That's why we let go of wanting a certain outcome, because those who answer the prayers are coming from a higher perspective. They can see the big picture, so their answers come from a place that makes more sense to the big picture purpose of growing and expanding in Love.