“Do You Pray?” My Attempt to Answer.

I’m often asked how I pray. This is intimately related to my view of “God”, so I treat this question with great caution and respect. Lisa and I talk about this quite a bit as well. I distinctly remember when we first left the ministry and the church and we were going through major withdrawal. She asked me, “Do you pray?” I couldn’t answer her then. I mean, we talked, but I didn’t have a way to articulate what I was intuiting.

Here’s my answer now:

1. I no longer view God as up there, out there, in here, beyond or remote. For me, the story of the incarnation describes God, revealed in Jesus, then sent as Spirit, as now among us, in us, AS us. All is “That-Which-We-Call-God”. There is now no separation or division. All is One.
2. While aware of this overwhelming and overarching Reality, I allow all of who I am to emerge… my sorrows, my failures, my weaknesses, my wants and desires, my longings… everything that I am… all of who and what I am… I allow all of this to rise within me up into my awareness.
3. This rising self-awareness joins with the former awareness of the reality of “All is One” and these two awarenesses abide together… they co-exist and even merge together as one. My oneness merges with the “All is Oneness” to create, for me, a relational union that feels compassionate to me. The All (me and the ALL) are one, and this is love.
4. Mostly these are silent movements, but if there are words or actions, they are spoken into this awareness, and they articulate and express all of who I am. I breathe these into the All that I am one with and now aware of.
5. I am usually aware of this when I am outside alone, at night, under the stars and moon. But it can and does happen anywhere at anytime, or everywhere all the time. In this way I pray without ceasing because I am all that I am in the All that always is.

So, this to me is what prayer is.

I wrote about prayer in my Z-Theory (that you can download for free on my nakedpastor site):

“Prayer is the effort to align with reality and is answered in the union with reality. It is agreement with what is and the attainment of harmony even through struggle. Prayer believes that the generous and just unfolding and enfolding manifests itself in justice and equality for all, and compassionately works to this end. Prayer is the non- discursive language of unconditioned being. Words are not necessary.”

I hope I articulated this clearly enough for you. And I hope it is helpful.

Much love to you all.

David