On Prayer and God
I’m just now getting around to considering prayer and God. It has taken me so long because my father had, during my formative years in the late 1950’s, decried the concepts as he had come to understand them, as being superstitious and ignorant. He was strongly influenced by a circle of “intellectuals” where he taught. They were scientists and artists and ran counter to the social mainstream. In the “beat” community, prayer was roundly criticized and God was dead or more likely never existed. There was cachet in being outrageous. And I was obviously influenced by his beliefs.
It’s taken me many years to form my own views.
I am not a theologian. I am autodidactic and my beliefs are my own. I see prayer today largely being hijacked by organized religion. Or it has become about petitioning some supernatural deity to ask for some specific consideration. Its real functionality has been lost. It’s easy to speculate why such communing could be billed as making a connection with God, for want of a word.
But it occurs to me that if one believes the universe is simply an artifact of one’s own consciousness, the (original) purpose of prayer lies more in the realm of meditation: An attempt to integrate that for which language fails us, absence and essence and that silence which lies beyond our understanding, and in so doing, access a state of clarity and perspective that would otherwise be obscured from us. Achieving this heightened state of awareness is the true function of “prayer”.
Could one then argue this is connecting with God? That might suggest God is in us, and also in everything which can be imagined, and everything which can’t, and everything else.
The only thing we can know is what we feel.
Everything else is only belief.
My personal belief is: God is our Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ is His only begotten Son, and the Holy Spirit is left on Earth for US until Jesus returns. There is no fanfare, or super expectations. I love my triune God and I pray, a simple Christian woman’s prayers. I don’t try to force anyone to see my way, as I believe if we cause others to stumble and never know God for themselves, we will answer for that. It’s even in the Bible, which I believe in, 100%! I am just sharing my beliefs. I found, it’s actually an easy and simple way, and not to complicate it. Jesus died on the cross for our sins, and if we believe this, and accept Him as our personal Saviour, we will go to Heaven, and also live a good life, etc. TY for taking time to read this. Namaste’.
@butterfly4him Thank you for sharing your views with us. I agree. Belief is a strictly personal thing. One might even say it is divine? Just saying. Namaste!
@robertleroy : Thank you!! 🙂
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My family life was in direct opposition to yours when I was growing up in the late 60s and through the 70s. I have been a Catholic Christian since the day I was formed in the womb, and I will be one until I die. The only thing that has ever changed for me throughout the years is whether or not I was practicing my faith. I was feeling the estrogen when I turned 18 and stopped going to church because no one could make me anymore. My friends didn’t go, and I didn’t feel like I needed to either… but I never stopped believing. And in all my years of partying through my 20s, I never stopped believing. I had a Saul getting knocked off his horse by a bolt of lightning moment when I was 30 and it sent me flying back to the faith of my youth and back to a relationship with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and all the angels and Saints. I have a huge faith family in heaven, and I’m glad they are looking out for me. I can only believe that it was through their prayers, cuz an eternally living soul can still pray for loved ones on earth, and God’s mercy that I’m alive and found my way back to Him.
Great entry, Robert. Thanks for sharing.
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