My reflection on The Prayer (1)

Here is the first of my reflections on The Prayer as I know it. The original is found at: 

https://www.divinetruth.com/www/en/pdf/Prayer/Prayer%20For%20Divine%20Love%20-%20English%20Modern%20Father.pdf

Father, Thou art all holy and loving and merciful…

“Father…”  The name Father, in The Prayer, is to me the same as God, or Mother. If God has created us in His image, He must be both masculine and feminine. I doubt that it matters much which I use. I like the part of the song ‘God is God’ by Steve Earle which says,

God of my little understanding don’t care which name I call

Whether or not I believe doesn’t matter at all

I receive the blessings

For now I prefer to stay with ‘Father,’ as it implies an intimacy that I want, and also, because I was more drawn to my earthly father than my mother, I find it easier, for now, to be open to the masculine part of God.  I hope that will change as time goes on.

I think of my mother, a devout Catholic, who was very drawn to Mother Mary and would pray mostly to her and Baby Jesus. An honest prayer will reach God no matter ‘which name I call,’ but since I am currently more comfortable in relating to one gender, I'm glad to know that God is still on the receiving end.

“ Thou art all holy and loving and merciful…” In his books, ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ and ‘Sons and Lovers,’ D H Lawrence has his characters, when speaking intimately to a loved one, use the words ‘thee, thou, thine.’  This is why I like to use the words ‘Thou art’ in the prayer. It feels more intimate.  If I felt it smacked of old-fashioned church-speak I would reject it for ‘You are…’ God wants an intimate relationship with me, this I feel sure of. Perhaps, for now, the best I can do in return is use words that help me feel the same way, and so I do.

“…all holy…”  I have pondered this word for some time.  What is ‘holy’ exactly? For now, I have decided that holy means ‘without sin,’ without any imperfection at all.  One could write pages on just this word, what it means and what it doesn’t mean, and perhaps I will sometime.

“,,,and loving…” I really have no idea what this word means!  My sense is that God’s love is different, softer, purer than human love, and that it is an emotion that doesn’t excuse or ignore my bad behaviour but, in persisting beyond the wrongness in me, helps me to see it better and want to do something about it. No pressure, just a goodness that gives me impetus to change.

“…and merciful…” God is full of mercy.  God is not a harsh judge as some Bible writers have portrayed Him, though I do believe that either on earth or after we die, all that is wrong in me does need to be addressed by me, acknowledged and appreciated for how I have affected myself and others.  God is also utterly fair.  But God’s mercy is, so I believe, seen in the way God allows me to make mistake after mistake, wilful or otherwise, and still does not ever reject me. I believe I feel God to be very near in those moments when I  feel very sorry for wrong I have done.

In the next post I would like to talk about the following phrase, “..and I am one of your children…”

Here’s the full text of Steve Earle’s song, written for Joan Baez to sing.

   

She sings it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8fFX5yn4Ks&spfreload=5 

Steve Earle sings it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5oV2bxxU9E

God is God

I believe in prophesy

Some folks see things not everybody can see

And once in a while they pass the secret on to you and me

And I believe in miracles

Something sacred burning in every bush and tree

We can all learn to sing the songs the angels sing

Yeah, I believe in God, and God ain’t me

I’ve travelled round the world

Stood on mighty mountains and gazed across the wilderness

Never seen a line in the sand or a diamond in the dust

And as our fate unfurls

Every bit that passes I’m sure about a little bit less

Even my money keeps telling me it’s God I need to trust

And I believe in God, and God ain’t us.

God of my little understanding don’t care which name I call

Whether or not I believe doesn’t matter at all

I receive the blessings

That every day on earth’s another chance to get it right

Let this little light of mine shine and rage against the night

Just another lesson

Maybe someone’s watching and wondering what I got

Maybe this is why I’m here on earth and maybe not

But I believe in God, and God is God.

God is?

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t believe in God.  I grew up with a lot of Catholic influence and saying prayers was a compulsory part of daily life back then.

Very occasionally, I’d have this sudden awful feeling that maybe God doesn’t exist, maybe it’s just a fairy story, a way to make me behave in an certain kind of way. My upbringing instructed me that to not believe in God was the road to ruin, and personal sacrifice, helping others, thrift and obedience would, in the long run, bring rewards.

I carried on, outwardly being the good girl but desperate to escape to some far-off country where no-one knew me and I could be as bad as I wanted to be. All the time, God was up there in the sky, smiling down at me, so I very much wanted to believe.

I did escape to a far-off country and was as bad as I wanted to be for a while. Even though I would still pop into a church whenever I saw one, I’d carry on, perhaps thinking that the God I believed in wouldn’t mind, as long as I said my prayers.

Now, at nearly 60, I continue to think a lot about God and, at long last, ask myself how things have panned out for me, the good, self-sacrificing, obedient, helpful, thrifty ex-Christian.* 

Who is God to me?

Well, I know I’ve felt driven to most of my choices and behaviours from a fear of eternal hellfire and damnation. God must be a powerful, unforgiving being who can never be satisfied.

But God is the kind, gentle, loving, comforting parent who will keep me safe and favour me because of all my earnest effort - won’t he?

I know which God I prefer.  But something within me insists that I need to be more open to that sudden awful feeling I used to get, the feeling that there is no God to bail me out, to make all my effort worthwhile, to reward me in the end.  

No God.  No reason for me to be kind, helpful, ‘good.’ I’ve thought for some time that atheists are far more honest, as a whole, because they make their choices for purely moral or ethical reasons. Would I?

If I did, would I continue to hear the beauty in music, feel the joy in making things and conveying ideas, see the wonder of things growing?  I like to think so.  Maybe there’s a reason behind those feelings; maybe I’ll find out, but I need to get rid of my ‘God’-gallery first.

*****

*The ex- in ex-Christian is because, many years ago, I dropped Jesus and the Holy Spirit out of the very un-mathematical ‘God is three and God is one’ equation, as taught by Christian faiths.

Opening up

I heard recently that I can't expect the world to become more open and truthful if I am not like this myself.  "From little things, big things grow," as they say. Well I know I'm pretty secretive, mainly about how miserly I am, but I'll give it a go.

By anyone's standards, I'm not exactly poor. I live alone in a four bedroom house that I own, on a 40 acre property in the bush. With my superannuation, a few years ago I bought an adjacent 40 acre property and started to build a bit of a shelter, just as a hobby. I also fully own a rental property, most of which is intended as inheritance for my youngest child, who has not yet received the inheritance the others have had. I also own a 20 acre property in New Zealand, in an area known for its scenic beauty.

Were I to sell these, I think I might get $250-$350,000 for the first, $60-$120,000 for the second, $180-$200,000 for the third, and $750-$950,000 for the last property, a total of $1.24 - $1.62 million.

My bank accounts are as follows:

Personal - $20,150.80. I will need a car upgrade very soon and want to attend my son's wedding in Poland

Rental property - $1974.01. The annual income covers the rates for the first three properties, plus $6-$7000 per year to my youngest daughter to support her study. 

Hobby property - $7,104.97. This is used to pay for materials as I go.

New Zealand property rental account - $1940.30.  As I have had some people paying to stay there in the last few months, I will need to pay tax from this account.

NZ personal account - $766.52

My income over the last nine months has been as follows:

Rental income in Aus - $3549 (rates have been subtracted)

Rental income NZ - as yet undetermined, likely a loss

Tutoring - $3114

Gardening - $1200

Bank interest - approx $400

Capital investment - approx $400

My expenses over the last nine months have been as follows:

Electricity $519.66

Phone and internet $239.54

NZ rates $116.67 (most is paid on my behalf)

Car fuel $1000.67

Car insurance $82.80

Car repairs $428.75

Trailer registration $99.15

Groceries approx $1087.68

Other (eg clothing, household needs) $660.30

Study support to daughter $6000

As it is not a full 12 month period, some expected expenses, such as car registration, further needed repairs, and the income statement for the new Zealand property are not yet available to me.

Some might say that my income and expenses are modest. The truth is that I am a miser. I eat food I have grown when I can, I buy fruit and vegetables that are in season, I buy most of my clothing and books at op shops, and I rarely buy takeaways. I sleep in the car or in a tent in preference to more expensive accommodation and I minimise my car trips so that I spend less time driving and pay less in fuel and repairs. I feel very uncomfortable with waste of any kind and will re-use or re-make or hoard rather than discard.

While I have plenty in my bank accounts, I am not exactly the basis of a strong economy if this involves circulation of money. I suspect that my miserliness is not a good thing, for me or others. When I sense it in others I can feel that they care more about money than about people; conversely, the truly generous people among us feel very good to be near.

Well - that's my thought for today anyway.

Meaningful conversation

Recently I read  an abridged article titled "Diagnosis: Meaning Fatigue" by Holly Gaudette, a staff chaplain at a medical center in New York, herself undergoing treatment for her third bout with cancer. (From Health Care Chaplaincy Today, July 2013)

The article I read started with the statement:

If I were admitted to hospital today, and if you were my chaplain, it’s likely you would find me difficult to engage. Had you stopped by to visit, I would chat politely with you. I would make small talk about bike riding, the weather, or the interesting necklace you’re wearing. But when you try to engage me, I simply will not go there.

She goes on to talk of her life experience with cancer and the accompanying emotional depletion she felt.  Towards the end she says:

The absolute wrong thing for you to do now is to try desperately to have a meaningful conversation with me. Eventually, you will succeed. You will nudge me to express my feelings of fear and grief, and I will go there with you sooner or later. My defenses are weak, and my emotions are all very close to the surface. Yet all you will have accomplished is to further deplete my emotional stores. What you can do is offer normalcy. Companionship. Friendly conversation.

Reading this led me to reflect on my experience as chaplain.  At first I really wanted to have those meaningful conversations; if I was lucky, about God, but even getting to where the patient was open about what was on his mind had me feeling grateful that I was doing what the role expected of me. 

Perhaps I expect less of myself now.  I'm starting to see that enjoying the interaction is a far bigger deal.  Being genuinely interested in the person behind the words, feeling a real connection is a two way thing.

This is, I feel sure, is what Holly Gaudette means when she says "Companionship. Friendly conversation."  There's a nourishment happening in the soul when we take a real interest in another without trying to 'fix' anything.  When I want to help a patient open to his pain there's a temptation to see myself as the benevolent person who has something to give to one who needs my help.  When I'm in the role of chaplain I may feel pleased with myself for a little while afterwards but it doesn't satisfy in the way that a real conversation does, where there's no hidden agenda to 'help.'

It's not quite how I was trained as chaplain. I don't want to rubbish that training though, because it directs me to looking for the person within the 'patient' and asks me to create, if I can, a space where the person feels safe to speak about how he feels. However, I'm slowly learning that I need to be open to my own feelings in an interaction in order to truly communicate, and also that the rewards of this kind of interaction are immediate, the mutual pleasure of being real with someone.  This doesn't mean that I'm

Syntax and all that

I've been told I'm a spelling and grammar Nazi.  OK, I agree.  When the written word isn't perfect to my eye I'm in danger of losing focus on the substance of the message, distracted by the mistake.  Add to that syntax.  I only found out what this means the other day; it's the arranging of words in a sentence, or so I understand. Ha, I thought with satisfaction, that's the word that completes me.  I'm a syntax Nazi too!

So I wasn't at all happy to look back on my most recent blog and see that all the paragraphs had run together.  As a reader I feel very hurried when there is no space for pause.  Conversely, I love the way that the written word, with all those carefully thought-out rules, can convey so much.

One of the favourite picture books my kids grew up with had a moral to the story: "it's never too late to correct a mistake."  Without further ado I'll re-submit my last blog, paragraphs and all this time hopefully, and you can decide for yourself whether it makes a difference.

Lukewarm

The other day I had a massage. In my life I've tended to be wary of this kind of thing and it's only very recently that I've decided to 'bite the bullet' as it were.  Strange expression for something that many people find enjoyable but I suppose pampering oneself was not something that was exactly a highlight of my Catholic upbringing (my parents being Dutch rather than Italian Catholics!)

It has been suggested to me that becoming more aware of my body can be a window into becoming more aware of my feelings, and so I have been approaching massages as a way to discover anger. For example, when the person massaging me finds a tender spot and works on it, I would lie there willing myself to allow the pain, sometimes yelling out in anger which, if nothing else, seemed to distract me a little from the pain happening and I often felt that I was being punished (yes, I have discovered that pain is linked to emotions!) 

But some time into this massage I had this thought that I don't need to go through all this pain. I somehow understood that I was being too hard on myself and that I should ask the masseur to go easy, to make it painless.  I was actually afraid to do this! Especially afraid that she would take it as a personal criticism.  But I got brave and she was happy to comply for the remainder of the session.

I've reflected a bit on this and some associated events recently. I'm now aware that I very often choose to do what I feel is expected of me or to do what will keep the peace in preference to what I really want.  I've been doing this for so long that it's second nature, that most of the time I think I am actually doing what I want.  Would I do this to the extent that I allow someone to inflict pain on me while telling myself that that's what I want?? Well - yes. 

One of the things that Jesus teaches is for me to take personal responsibility for myself.  I really dislike this teaching. I want to feel safe and follow guidelines. I don't want to feel bad because I've made what seems to me like an awful mistake.  I've learned from Jesus that God wants me to be actively involved in discovering who I really am, not to blindly follow a set of rules made by someone else in preference to thinking and deciding and experimenting for myself.

I've always liked that phrase in the Bible where we are told that it is better to be hot or cold, but if we're lukewarm we will be spat out, or something like that.  I never saw myself as a lukewarm person but the evidence is right there for me to acknowledge.  When I come for a massage I make sure the masseur knows she can follow her own instinct about where to go and how hard to prod and I lie there feeling like a battered child. And that's being lukewarm.  And I see that I do this constantly in my life and it gets me nowhere.  I need to start seriously asking myself what I want, get over my issue about making a horrible mistake, and get hot or cold.

I'm looking forward to my next massage.  I'm looking forward to asking for a gentle soft massage and feeling like a pampered baby - and loving every minute!

Lukewarm

The other day I had a massage. In my life I've tended to be wary of this kind of thing and it's only very recently that I've decided to 'bite the bullet' as it were. Strange expression for something that many people find enjoyable but I suppose pampering oneself was not something that was exactly a highlight of my Catholic upbringing (my parents being Dutch rather than Italian Catholics!) It has been suggested to me that becoming more aware of my body can be a window into becoming more aware of my feelings, and so I have been approaching massages as a way to discover anger. For example, when the person massaging me finds a tender spot and works on it, I would lie there willing myself to allow the pain, sometimes yelling out in anger which, if nothing else, seemed to distract me a little from the pain happening and I often felt that I was being punished (yes, I have discovered that pain is linked to emotions!) But some time into this massage I had this thought that I don't need to go through all this pain. I somehow understood that I was being too hard on myself and that I should ask the masseur to go easy, to make it painless. I was actually afraid to do this! Especially afraid that she would take it as a personal criticism. But I got brave and she was happy to comply for the remainder of the session. I've reflected a bit on this and some associated events recently. I'm now aware that I very often choose to do what I feel is expected of me or to do what will keep the peace in preference to what I really want. I've been doing this for so long that it's second nature, that most of the time I think I am actually doing what I want. Would I do this to the extent that I allow someone to inflict pain on me while telling myself that that's what I want?? Well - yes. One of the things that Jesus teaches is for me to take personal responsibility for myself. I really dislike this teaching. I want to feel safe and follow guidelines. I don't want to feel bad because I've made what seems to me like an awful mistake. I've learned from Jesus that God wants me to be actively involved in discovering who I really am, not to blindly follow a set of rules made by someone else in preference to thinking and deciding and experimenting for myself. I've always liked that phrase in the Bible where we are told that it is better to be hot or cold, but if we're lukewarm we will be spat out, or something like that. I never saw myself as a lukewarm person but the evidence is right there for me to acknowledge. When I come for a massage I make sure the masseur knows she can follow her own instinct about where to go and how hard to prod and I lie there feeling like a battered child. And that's being lukewarm. And I see that I do this constantly in my life and it gets me nowhere. I need to start seriously asking myself what I want, get over my issue about making a horrible mistake, and get hot or cold. I'm looking forward to my next massage. I'm looking forward to asking for a gentle soft massage and feeling like a pampered baby - and loving every minute!

Responsibility

A week ago it was brought to my attention that within me there is an expectation that if I care for others then somebody, when I need it, will care for me. I felt misunderstood, misjudged, thinking that yes, that would apply to my sibling who states this clearly, no beating around the bush. But it doesn't take a deep thinker to see that if that feeling is within my sibling, being brought up together by the same parents, it's probably in me too. It's just that I convince myself that I'm not like that, I'm just a little 'holier-than-thou' there.



I attended a small group the other day, of people who want to build nesting boxes for birds in order to enhance their likelihood of survival given the destruction of forests and imbalance caused by us humans. As I sat there listening to the enthusiasm of the others for the birds, their wanting to know more about their nesting and feeding patterns, their habitat, their ability to get to food and water so that we could build suitable 'housing' and put it in suitable places, I became more aware that I don't feel strongly about birds. I love the dawn chorus that wakes me and I love to see pretty little colourful birds but later as we walked through the bush I was even more aware that I'm far more interested in trees than birds. My enthusiasm for building nesting boxes is based mainly on how much I love to work with wood and produce something useful.



I could stop there and say, 'well, we were all created differently and that's how it is', but it isn't really. Because if I go back to how I felt when people were discussing birds I discover that there's a familiar groaning within me, that 'oh no, here's something else I should be responsible for', and I feel like a bad person because I'm obviously different to all these people who want to give to birds as opposed to me - I just want them for their dawn chorus and their beauty.



Somewhere, a long time ago, I picked up that I need to be responsible for – well, just about everything – the well-being of my partner, kids, friends, the tidiness of my room, my house, my garden, the world, you name it. But it has also been pointed out to me (incidentally by the same person who pinpointed my expectation) that many of us who were given undue responsibility when young grow up believing they are responsible for others and often forget to be responsible for themselves in the process. Hmm. So that's why I expect others to, at some stage, return the favour?



I sat high up on a large smooth rock this morning, part of a tiny canyon, next to a huge tree that just seemed to grow straight out of rock, sunny blue sky, white clouds overhead reflected in a small clear pool below me where baby goannas were swimming. Another tree with new green growth and flowering, grew beside the pool, providing welcome shadow. I love to be in the wilderness so much. It occurred to me that among other things it is also an escape, a place where not I but God will tend to the landscape – I don't feel responsible.


I'm running away though. I want to get to where I don't think things out at all, where I do things because I love doing them, where the act of doing is the reward in itself, where it doesn't even occur to me whether something is fair or not. But, like my sibling, I had better start with being up-front about how I really feel.



Meantime, Paul Simon's words are singing in my head:



Far above the golden clouds the darkness vibrates
The earth is blue
And everything about it is a love song
Everything about it.

Sitting on my rock I'm overwhelmed with how everything about the earth is a love song.

And love does not feel like responsibility.