Sometimes It's NOT Enough

Saw a note on FB that simply said that in these types of situations

Your Prayers are not enough.

It was referring, of course, to the Standard Response (TM) to mass shootings and other things that cause people incredible distress.

I am praying for you.

Now, not to be one who denigrates prayer since I believe it is an important spiritual action we all need, I understand what the first statement means.

• Prayers are not enough
• If that is all you plan to do!

Too often we all use that as a way to cope with our sense of powerlessness in the face of overwhelming problems, issues, disasters, and the like. We feel so damn powerless- and we don't like it! So we pray.

In and of itself, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. In fact, it may be the best thing we can do first.

But what then?

Sure, there are times when there is nothing else to do. But I have the feeling that we often stop right there with the prayer and move on. We have done our "duty" and prayed.

I feel better about myself. I am a good person. I have turned to God. I no longer feel powerless- or guilty for not being in the midst of all that. I go about my business.

Again, in and of itself, that is okay.

But what else can I do?

There may be more than I think.

But if I stop at the praying, I may never know what it is the God I am praying to WANTS me to do.

The Twelve-Step programs are clear there is more to prayer than praying. Step 11:

• Sought through prayer and meditation 
• to improve our conscious contact with God, 
• praying only for 
• the knowledge of God's will for us and 
• the power to carry it out.

 Prayer is often NOT all there is for me to do.

Thank God!

A Better Saying

I have often been hard on Church signs that have sayings that don't make sense, are overly cute, or just plain inane. Once in a while I do come across one that manages to say something that is a good reminder to me of my daily walk with my God and Higher Power. Here's the one I recently responded to in a positive way:

Is God your first thought or last resort?

My first response was easily

Great question!

As I pondered it further I naturally went to the old line that

there are no atheists in foxholes.

I'm not sure that is explicitly true, but it does clearly say that when our backs are up against a wall and there's no other way, people are more likely to turn to something or someone for help.

God as a last resort.

There's nothing wrong with that, of course. Most of the time we don't need to be stopping and praying to God for the least little thing. Those are the things I have always referred to as "parking place prayers." You know, you are running late, need to get to a store and out quickly so you say a prayer- God help me get a parking place quickly. [Full disclosure: While I admit to believing that the Creator of the universe has more important things to do, I do say those prayers from time to time.] But if that is the way I live, it is probably not the healthiest, in the long run. It can become simply a way of doing whatever I want to do and then asking God to bail me out.

So, I continued pondering the quote. I realized that this is the basic philosophy and way-of-life of the Twelve-Step groups. It is, in fact, Step Eleven:

Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry it out.

In the Big Book of AA, Bill W. wrote,

We shouldn't be shy in this matter of prayer. Better men than we are using it constantly. It works, if we have the proper attitude and work at it.

The basic message is the challenge to make God our first thought instead of last resort. That means living my life in the presence of God, knowing God's love and grace, ever aware of my need for God's power(!) and God's daily willingness to provide we what I need, not always what I want.

In other words, God's will should be my first thought, my daily prayer, and my constant source of gratitude. As one begins to live that in more and more ways (and it is not as simple as some make it sound!!!) one  learns the truth of the admonition to

Pray without ceasing!

What a burden is lifted at that point. I don't have to know what's next. I just have to work at keeping myself in God's will or, as one hears in the Twelve-Step fellowships

just doing the next right thing

I guess that church sign did its job the other day. It didn't get me in "their" church, but it did keep me thinking about my faith and spirituality.

Must have been my Higher Power at work.

As usual.

It Takes You

Anyone who has ever been on a spiritual journey- or sees their life as one- will be able to recount times when wherever we are becomes a place of enlightenment. Of course, any time and any place can be a place of enlightenment, we just have to be open at every given moment to hear or see it happening.

That happened to me again today. We were talking with a person who will be helping a relative out with some chores and the like. The person was giving us a brief Twitter-length account of their life. They referred to their life-journey as a "vision quest"-type of thing. [Yep- I can go with that one!]

They then talked about a simple prayer that they say daily- and as often as possible each day. It was what is referred to as either the Prayer of the Heart or the Jesus Prayer. Here is what you can find in Wikipedia:

The prayer has been widely taught and discussed throughout the history of the Church. It is often repeated continually as a part of personal ascetic practice, its use being an integral part of the eremitic [desert Fathers and Mothers] tradition  of prayer. The prayer is particularly esteemed by the spiritual fathers of this tradition as a method of opening up the heart and bringing about the Prayer of the Heart [which] is considered to be the Unceasing Prayer that the apostle Paul advocates in the New Testament.

I knew this person was a pilgrim. It wasn't what he said as much as how he put it into the context of daily living. Basically, he implied, you just do the prayer. You do it all day. You do it as you get up and as you go to bed. You live the prayer.

But, no that is not quite true, this pilgrim of the soul added. After you start praying it, I was told...

the prayer takes you!

Oh how true. Unceasing prayer does that. The pilgrim I met today is on the right path. For Christians the Jesus Prayer or Prayer of the Heart is a living mantra that allows the work of the soul to be enriched and enlightened. It is the prayer that will move us beyond words to the depths of our hearts.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,
have mercy on me, a sinner.

As the pilgrim described it to me the words flowed slowly and with clarity. No word was missed, no word was seen as too little or unimportant. The slow, breathing way the words were said was a witness to their depth. This was not rote prayer. This was prayer that asked for nothing but grace.

Living and breathing prayer can make all the difference.

I have heard this many times in the past since first being introduced to this marvelous prayer of simplicity over 30 years ago. But as I listened today to a practical explanation of it's importance, it was as if I was hearing it for the first time again. It was always new and always fresh. I think of this for my own spiritual practice and tradition when I hear the 11th step of Alcoholics Anonymous:

Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry it out.

It's amazing- but you never know when God is about to teach you a new old lesson. Let the prayer live and take you where you need to go.

Wrestling On

Over the last month of being “semi-retired” and not being as immersed in the daily work, I have found myself wrestling with religious issues as if I were back in the pulpit again. I have been blind-sided by this movement in my life. Not that I left it behind over the past 10 years of working outside the church. The posts of this blog often had that religious direction to them.

But here I am spending a lot of time talking to myself in these words about what it means to be the church, to be part of the church.

So why am I still preaching? At least, still preaching in my writing? Why am I still working on being part of the church? Why can’t I quit you?

Yes, it is that kind of a relationship. It is one I am stuck in and with because I am unable to leave it behind.

Now that is scary. That is what I hear all the time from my patients and others who are still stuck in addiction. It is why I described the movie that line is from as about love addiction- co-dependence.

Perhaps some of it has to do with the fact that I spent 30 years of my adult life serving the institution- and I want to make sure it was for the right reasons. On one hand I know it was for many good and wonderful things came out of it. People were touched, loved, brought into deeper relations with the Creator of the Universe.

But the church is an imperfect organization that hurts people as much as it helps them. Not necessarily a given congregation, but the Church. The human institution is very capable of doing evil. A scan of religious news of the past several decades would easily give enough examples to fill many books.

Many people have been abused and misused by other church people. Judgmentalism, self-righteousness, anger clothed as “holiness”, violence in order to protect God’s good name have not been missing from the day in and day out life of many churches. People have been cheated, lied to, accused of wrong doing by leaders they thought they could trust. Even when the truth comes out, the abused and misused have been sure they were wrong and their leaders had to be right.

The institution itself perpetuates its own myths. We think of ourselves more highly than we deserve to be thought of, yet are often truly humble and willing to reach out to the least and lost around us. Most positive social change has started in one way or another in the halls of faith as a response to living out the call of God. Abolition of slavery, civil rights, building homes with the poor, feeding the street people are but small pieces of the work of the churches.

Yet these were just as often opposed by church people using the same Bible to keep the status quo in place and the poor and oppressed in their place. The KKK found a fiery cross for its symbol and Hitler easily co-opted a country of deep religious history into buying his Final Solution.

There is always a “Yes, but…” in the discussion about the church. There is always another side, the opposite side sometimes good, sometimes evil, but clearly able to be seen. The church slowly makes its snail-like progress through the centuries, often stuck in an image and understanding one generation behind.

Hence the eternal need for prophets in the church. When the institution becomes too secular it is challenged to go deeper into its faith. When the church becomes too comfortable in serving itself the prophetic challenges it to step outside the box. When it throws out tradition because it doesn’t seem to be “relevant” the voices remind it that tradition can be solid ground in difficult times. Or when tradition is the end-all and be-all a prophetic vision breathes new life into the seemingly dead bones.

In short, the church is always in the process of dying- and always having the holy wind of God’s resurrection pushing at its stone-guarded doors.

This is what I am wrestling with today. We will see where it goes, of course. I seem to say that about many different things, but then again, I am always this work-in-progress. I seek each day to be led by my Higher Power. Step Eleven of the Twelve-Step programs is very clear and what I try to do each and every day. I try to seek

through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with God, asking only for knowledge of God’s will for me and the power to carry it out.

Feedback?

An Ending....

As this is scheduled to post around 5:00 pm Central time, I will have ended my adult, full-time working career, whatever that means. In practice it means that by the time you are reading this I will be semi-retired, working only part-time. I have talked about this before here on the blog so if you are one of the regulars, you already know about this. But it is a time of mixed emotions and reflections.

It was 1974 when I started as a full-time pastor of a church. I did that for 30 years, going on a leave of absence ten years ago the end of this month. That was to move into my 2nd career full time. In the previous ten years I had also worked part-time as an addictions counselor so it was time to do that full-time. As I once described it to a group I was training with, at that point I finally paid attention to God's call to do ministry outside the institution of the church. Secular ministry I called it (and still do, even though I do not like the term.) For the past 10 years I have worked full-time in the addictions field working first with middle school youth, then young adults and finally with adults in residential and outpatient settings.

What a ride it has been. In the midst of all that I had some amazing adventures, met and worked with many amazing people. I have loved my work and never felt that I was in the wrong vocation or calling. The call changed, but it was always ministry in the very best, broadest and most profound sense of that much abused word. I like being on the front-lines; that quote over there in the sidebar has never wavered: I want to live and work within a few yards of the gates of hell. One of these days I will write on here about what that has meant to me. But for today, I am semi-leaving part of that behind to begin my third career.

Tomorrow I will talk about that. For today, it feels as if I have taken another important step, led by God's grace and calling. Ministry is not a church-based, church-owned, or even church-defined activity. It is where God calls you. The leading of these past 40 years has been amazing, humbling, always exciting, sometimes frustrating since God doesn't usually do what I want God to do in spite of my prayers and petitions to the contrary. The key is in the 11th step of Alcoholics Anonymous:

Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying ONLY [emph. added] for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry it out.

I have tried to do that to the best of my ability and I have always found the empowerment needed.

I have no doubt about that empowerment and direction into the future.