Tag: prayer

life, prayer, religion

Retreating to the Desert

I’ve always prayed a lot. Mostly because no one else wants to talk to me much. And I can only talk to myself so much. So I pray. And if you spend a lot of time praying, after a while you decide that maybe you should stop just chattering and try to listen. And if you let the Spirit lead you as you try to listen, it will show you to a place of still and quiet where the Spirit in you hangs out. I’ve described it before like finding a faint channel on the radio dial that if you can be quiet and sit still and get the antenna just so, you can tune into. Sometimes if you sit and listen, you can tune into God. Other times, there’s just a sense of something meant for you – an image, a song, a feeling. For a long time there was this joy waiting for me there. In the middle of everything, if I could just get my mind to quiet and my feelings to settle, it was like opening a spring-loaded door that let in this golden light of joy. It was hard to hold onto and once my mind wandered or my feelings intruded, it was gone. But I could get there if I tried and just bask in it for a moment or two. (Yes, I know I sound crazy. So what? If people knew what went on in your head, they’d probably think you were crazy too!) But then the joy went away. And was replaced by . . . nothing.

For a while, I would quiet and settle and reach this nothing and be so upset to find that my joy was gone and God wasn’t there and there was just nothing waiting there to comfort or sustain me that I would quickly withdraw in anger and frustration. Sometimes I would try and sit and wait, wait, wait and look, look, look for something – anything to hold onto. But it was just so, so empty. This is what has been fueling most of my crabby, woe-is-me anger the last couple of months. Everything else that’s going on, I’ve mostly let go of. I can’t make everything I own quit breaking and I can’t make money appear and I can’t make people like me or fix everyone’s issues, so whatever. I’d be quite happy to just draw from that inner place where God’s joy and peace and hope are placed and live off of that. But it’s empty. I’m just SOL. Continue reading “Retreating to the Desert”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter16 Comments
prayer, religion

Whatcha Praying For?

Do you want to know what you really look like to God? Pull out a piece of paper and make a list of the things you have prayed for most fervently. What’s there is the sort of person you are presenting yourself to God as. Who have you told God you are? Someone who wants things? Someone who wants people? Someone who wants comfort and ease? Someone who wants God himself? Who do you want God to know you as?

Let me be a blessing to you, Lord.

Be careful what you pray for – asking God for something is a bit like telling the genie in the lamp your wish. He may take you at your word.

Let my heart love and desire nothing and no one more than it loves and desires you, God.

Pray a prayer like that at your own risk Continue reading “Whatcha Praying For?”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter3 Comments
enjoy life, prayer, relationships, religion, thoughts

Allow Me to Screw Up Your Sex Life a Bit

“We monks do not try to repress our sexual passions . . . Woe to those monks and nuns, who shovel into their subconscious their sexual passions. . . There is no spirituality in that. What happens, and what we aim at, is the transmutation of erotic energy from earthly attractions to God.” – Father Maximos quoted in The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality by Kyriacos C. Markides

In the old pagan world, sex and religion were all tied up together. Temple prostitutes and depictions of group sex on ancient Hindu temple walls and all that. Christianity has too often taken the opposite tact – sex as being so unholy that for a while it was considered a sin even in the context of marriage by the Roman church. Which led to possibly the most dysfunctional set-up ever; putatively and sometimes actually celibate priests being told each time a parishioner had sex with their spouse. What could be the problem with that, eh? Although the actual rejection of sex by the Christian church has varied wildly from place to place and time to time, the reality is that a lot of people continue to see sex and God as inevitably belonging in two separate spheres of our lives. To the extent that God and sex intersect, it is in the parsing out of rules for sexual conduct. But when actual sex takes place, well if our guardian angels could please exit the room, that would be great. And surely God has the good manners to turn his head for a few minutes. Wouldn’t want to be caught in flagrante delicto by the creator of the universe. That would be too weird. Continue reading “Allow Me to Screw Up Your Sex Life a Bit”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter9 Comments
prayer, religion

A Prayer for Easter Morning

Father God, We come to you today as a family of the broken, the humbled, the weak and the victorious. We have walked down dark paths and through dark places. We have been wounded, we have been lost and we have been foolish. Yet no matter how hopeless or empty our spirit’s dwelling places have been, Easter morning is always there speaking victory to us. … Continue reading A Prayer for Easter Morning

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter1 Comment
prayer, religion

I am. God is. Are you? Zen . . .

I am.  That’s our goal.  I am.  We are children of I Am.  Made in his image.  I am.  Are you?  Ha!

Part of our problem is that we are convinced that I am – whether it be God, ourselves, or our present circumstances and surroundings – is something to be suspect of, probably terribly boring or terrible bad or terribly not me.  Like the God whose main building tool is explosions is going to want us to stand around all day humming melodically.  Seriously?  (Sometimes when people talk to me, this just pops into my head.) 

But we resist I am.  If we didn’t we’d have to learn to slow down and be present.  We’d maybe even have to let ourselves be irreperably imperfect.  We’d have to face things we didn’t even know we’d be running from.  And that would be uncomfortable.  We’d have to do things the people around us might not approve of.  It might be too hard.  It might even drive you into the arms of God, no?  Because it’s not easy to learn to just be.  I would never want to have to do it on my own. 

When you are determined to learn to embrace I Am whether it is the I Am God or the I am Rebecca or I am going through an unwanted divorce and I’m really embarrassed at what the people I’m related to will think of me because of this, then you will reach a place that I call zen – although it’s probably a terrible abuse of what the actual word means.  To me zen is just a very deep acceptance.  It’s when you can let go – even for just a few seconds at a time – of your emotional need for reality to be different than it actually is.  It’s not letting go of desire – wanting something is part of reality, and acceptance of reality is what living with and in I am is all about.  One of the differences between real zen and the Christian version, donchya know.

When I am at “zen”, I find that I have all the patience in the world when I need it.  There is peace.  There is joy. Things make much more sense from the point of zen than they do any other time.  If I’ve ever said something that was so obvious that it made you feel stupid for not having thought of it that way before, it’s something that came from being in zen.  Continue reading “I am. God is. Are you? Zen . . .”

Unknown's avatarRebecca TrotterLeave a comment
life, prayer, religion, thoughts

It Will Be Alright. Or So I’ve Been Told

Suck it up, kid. You'll get a better one in heaven.

A friend recently sent a note in which she commented on the lack of “why me?” talk on my blog.  Silly girl – I was raised Catholic.  I can think of at least 100 reasons all of this is my own fault right off the top of my head!  That, plus the fact that life has been handing me inexplicably little help for as long as I can remember means that I let “why me?” go a long time ago.  There are only two answers: “you’re doing it wrong” or “because this is the way you need to go“.   Either I’m screwing something up and should fix it – hence the Catholic guilt – or this is one of those things that will only make sense later.  Frankly, Catholic guilt gets a bad rap – it’s downright empowering in light of the alternative!

This was a tough week.  It was one of those weeks where an emotional rough patch and a life rough patch collided and made a mess all over the highway of my life.  (I keep telling God he needs to pave the damn thing.)  And just to make sure that all of this doesn’t get to be too routine, my wonderful parents were visiting, so I had an audience.  (My poor parents; I’m glad and grateful that they were here, but I know it’s only marginally more fun to watch someone you love go through things you are helpless to do anything about than it is to go through it yourself.  I have to remind myself that God must have his reasons for asking them to walk a path which includes me and my mess of a life.)

If you read my book The Upside Down World ~ A Book of Wisdom in Progress, you will remember that I first met God in a fit of enraged blasphemy.  Which means that I’ve always felt free to itch and moan and be as upset as I want to be in prayer.  Besides, Jesus was said to have prayed with “loud cries and tears” himself.  So by the end of the week, my prayers had devolved into demands: “I can’t do this.  I’m not going to do this.  You need to fix this.  Not just spiritually, but for real.  In the real world.  Continue reading “It Will Be Alright. Or So I’ve Been Told”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter2 Comments
enjoy life, prayer, relationships, religion

The Emotional God

A couple of years ago, I was sitting on my front porch steps after dinner, watching my two oldest daughters playing and complaining to God in my head.  I don’t remember what it was (nothing too serious), but the qxh (quasi-ex-husband) had done something to chap my hide.  As I wound down my complaints and let the whole thing go, I asked God in an almost off-handed way, “do you ever have to deal with people treating you like this?”  At which point I’m pretty sure all of heaven burst into hearty guffaws.  But soon a funny thing started happening: as I dealt with people in my life, often some parallel experience between God and people would pop into my head. 

Sometimes it was something little, like calling someone who did not answer their phone.  How often does God try to reach out to people who ignore or reject the call because they are too busy, inattentive or just don’t feel like it?  I would ask one of my boys to load and run the dishwasher only to discover at dinnertime hours later that we had no clean pots, plates or utensils.  Suppose God ever asks people to do things that don’t get done?  Ocasionally, I would have to deal with someone who insisted on talking over me, refused to listen to my perspective or treat it with respect.  Yeah, I’m sure God never has to deal with stuff like that, right?

By the next summer a variety of calamities, traumas and disappointments had hit my family full force.  As the qxh started to dissemble and then turn on me, these parallels became more pointed and poignant.  Loving someone who is being supremely difficult, unreasonable and hostile turns out to be something that God is intimately familiar with.  Continue reading “The Emotional God”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter2 Comments
prayer, religion

Prayers that get answered

"Please, please, please!"

Prayer used to confuse me.  Or I should say, prayers asking for specific outcomes used to confuse me.  Like, “please let my car start” or “please let that guy I have a crush on notice me”.  Worthy or not, these are the “please give me what I want” category of prayers.  Or sometimes “please let reality not be reality for me just this once”.  I used to pray such prayers with great fervency.  Jesus said ask and you shall receive.  If I just believed enough, it would be granted to me.  It was prayer as magic.  But magic isn’t real.  And it never worked.  As a matter of fact, people who spend any time around me will tell you that I have remarkably bad luck.  I got 5 flat tires this summer.  At least twice a year my mail is returned to the sender for no apparent reason.  And those are almost always two pieces of mail with money in them.  As a child, I got sick and missed the class field trip 3 years in a row.  It was probably the only time I was sick all year.  That’s just the way it has always been for me.  I don’t know why.  Continue reading “Prayers that get answered”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter4 Comments
prayer, religion

Do You Treat God Like Old Aunt Myrtle?

“Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.” Luke 18:17

When ever I have hear this verse taught the point is pretty much the same: we should have a child like trust.  What does that even mean?  It gives me a vision of children sitting around gazing up at us with trusting goo-goo eye all day.  As if.  Obedience?  Ever known any real-live children?

Become like little children.  Perhaps Jesus meant this comment more literally than we usually take it.  I happen to know a thing or two about children and off the top of my head, here’s a quick list of typical behaviors:

  • They bring you their boo-boos to fix
  • They follow you around chattering about any little thing they can think of, just to be with you
  • They ask questions – lots and lots of questions
  • They test boundaries
  • They look to you to show them who they are
  • They sometimes have to learn things the hard way
  • They like to make you laugh
  • They seek you out when they are lonely, bored, restless
  • They like to learn more about you and your life
  • They ask more questions
  • They like to show off what they’ve learned
  • They want you to approve of them
  • They want to share all the tiny details of their lives with you
  • They must often be prodded, pushed, persuaded and sometimes even punished to behave properly
  • Their love for you sometimes boils over and they have to let you know how much they love you
  • They push back to learn where and how firm the boundaries are, what the motivation is, and if you can be trusted to be fair
  • They need you to understand them when they mess up and forgive Continue reading “Do You Treat God Like Old Aunt Myrtle?”
Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter3 Comments
prayer, religion

Would you run?

Could you forgive the way that the father of the prodigal son forgives?  Would you want to? 

Last winter as things were really unravelling with the qxh (quasi-ex husband), I was, of course, very upset with him.  I was considering at what point a couple could say that they had hit the point of no return.  At what point would it be reasonable to say that I’d had enough and wasn’t going to consider trying to fix things anymore?  To my horror, as I prayed God brought to mind the story of the prodigal son and challenged me to be like . . . the father.  Really?   Uh, that’s not for me.  Tell me I’m the prodigal who needs to come home or tell me that I’m the older brother who needs to get over himself.  But don’t tell me to run out to joyously meet someone who has willfully ripped my heart to shreds without even getting an apology and admission of wrongdoing first?  Ugh. 

I’m not kidding when I said I was horrified.  Yet each night before dinner our family prays “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  When we pray that, it’s not just a quid-pro-quo: “I’ll forgive him and you’ll forgive me”.  It’s also telling us that forgiving as God forgives is our goal.  And God does forgive by running out and making a complete fool of himself to welcome back the wayward son.  He doesn’t wait for us to grovel, to set up a payment plan, to promise on our lives never to do it again.  He just says, “welcome back.”  Continue reading “Would you run?”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter1 Comment