Thoughts and Change

Last night in our Bible Study, God Views, we read this advice to perfectionists: Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.

It made me laugh. Just try something, anything. Don't wait until you can do it perfectly, or exactly, just do something. That's is the polar opposite of my usual train of thought.

Our thoughts are powerful. It's no wonder Kathleen Norris, in her newest book Acedia and Me notes that the seven deadly sins used to be called the eight bad (or tempting, perhaps) thoughts. The earliest Christians who wrote about their lives spoke often of how to overcome these thoughts. Their writings describe internal struggle, and what treasure they had found in learning to marshall their thought-life toward God.

Today I was feeling very 'beaten' by a sinus infection, Randy being gone, some bad news from friends and a busy week to come. Sitting in my class at the hospital, I was challenged to think about what I want to be, instead of what I am not. Ponder that for a moment. The leader reminded us we need more time to think than we usually allow ourselves. "So sit in your chair, take deep, wonderful breaths, and think," she invited.

I thought of all things I want to be, and it was incredible to note the amount of energy that simply flooded through me when I stopped focusing on what I wasn't (feeling well, to start with) and started thinking about what I want (to be healthy, to start with). I honestly felt more awake, less sick, more hopeful.

While we don't control which thoughts float in and out of our consciousness, we do control which ones we allow to live there. That, I think, is where the power of Christ comes in. There is, quite simply, no way to send those thoughts packing without the power of Christ through the Holy Spirit. In Christ, however, we find it possible to simply notice all that is going on in our mind, and allow only what is Christly to stick around.

It's a pretty frightening time in our nation's economic history. All around us, people are losing their jobs, at least here in Elkhart. Older folks are putting off retirement out of necessity. Younger ones feel insecure. The election has brought out the usual nasty rhetoric. There is not a lot of hope amongst the masses.

I could focus on that. Or I could remember the value of Philippians 4:8 - 'Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable -- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy -- think about these things.'

How about this? From now on, I pray only positive. Instead of what I don't want, I will ask for what I do. Instead of noticing the failures, the stupidity, the negative, I'll give thanks for those things that lead me to my goal. A free country (isn't it awesome that we can have dialogs in public?); a prosperous community (isn't it so cool that we all have food on our table and there are so many generous people sharing their wealth?); a bright future (God promises when we pray he'll give us good things - bread, not stones).

Ok, it might sound corny to you. Still, why not? What is there, really, to lose? After all, anything worth doing is worth doing poorly! I want to be a person who works for God's good, bringing Christ near to others. I will let him train me to think and live in his Way. Who knows what he will make of me?

To a louse

As usual when preparing for a sermon, I find nuggets of wisdom completely out of context. I found myself face to face with Rabbie Burns this week.

"O wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us.
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
An foolish notion:"

It became a prayer, really. "Help me see myself, clearly and honestly." So many problems come from a lack of self-knowledge. I've watched many a person cause pain and suffering in those they love, simply because they are clueless about their own feelings, their own strength, their own ego.

Then I googled the first line, and discovered that the title of the poem is 'To a louse.'

A LOUSE!

Ach, Rabbie - wisdom in a louse. Wisdom for me, trying not to cause pain and suffering in those I love. Lice of all things. Maybe the world would be a far better place if we not only knew ourselves, but if we also took time to contemplate with such devotion small and ordinary things.

I'll put it on my to-do list: meditate on a louse.
Holy Spirit, you crack me up!

(Here it is, if you want to read the entire poem for yourself)
http://quotations.about.com/cs/poemlyrics/a/To_A_Louse.htm

My friend and I are always discussing the people who bug us. "Idiots," one of us will observe. After all, everyone should think like us! Usually the idiots think everyone should think like them. We know it doesn't help the world - it just helps us cope with people who challenge our determination to love.

I've found, though, that an hour on my bike in the warm summer sun, and it doesn't matter so much. Something strange comes over me. Not well-being, exactly. It's more like my body is praying while my mind is looking for potholes and shards of glass. By the time I turn the corner toward home, I am free of the worry and the stress. God is in his heaven and I am willing to let him do his job.

No other exercise has done this for me, to this point. What I'll do this winter, I don't know. Perhaps there are snow tires for bicycles?

Healing Prayer

Writing a sermon on healing prayer challenges me. I am reading Philip Yancey's book "Prayer." He has good and interesting things to say and is, I'd judge, biblically and theologically sound. It's good to hear stories of people who've waited their whole lives for an experience of God, praying faithfully all that time, and only really 'connected' once. Good also to hear stories of people who weren't healed in the way they thought.

I prayed for years to be released from appetite for overeating, and for the polycystic ovarian syndrome that either arose from or caused that appetite (no one knows). Never happened. Still hasn't. But what I've learned is that I play a role, smaller some days than others, in releasing the raging appetite that plagued me for years. Perhaps that's an answer to my prayer for healing. Knowing that sugar sets me up for the desire to binge is helpful. Knowledge alone, though, hasn't proved enough.

What I've learned, I suppose, is that one never stops needing to pray for healing. For me, for the chronic nature of my dis-eases, healing comes with constant contact, with connecting to others who share the struggle, with honesty and with self-denial. It's not a sudden thing, but a constant thing.

The other thing is that, after a while, you get tired of praying for your own healing. It's boring listening to yourself beg over and over again. Pretty soon, I turn to praying for others, those I perceive as worse off (who but God can judge that), those whose faces or names come to mind. Strange, but that brings more relief, more wholeness than anything else I do in prayer.

I am not sure what it changes. Prayer isn't really about problem solving (as much as I wish it were). Prayer doesn't solve anything. It is more like entering a different world, and letting yourself become enculturated to that other place.

Whatever else can be said, James is pretty clear that if we're in need, we pray (and not alone). Jesus tells us 'When you pray' not 'If you pray.' So we keep at it, and try to ask faithfully, and once again fall on the merciful Spirit to translate our prayers into something intelligible to God. We are promised that when we pray, we will receive something good (Luke has Jesus telling us we'll receive the Holy Spirit,r regardless).

Nothing to lose, then, is there? Which doesn't make it easy, but that's another day.

What if it's all prayer?

Saturday afternoon, I went for a long (for me) bike ride. Hot sun burned my arms, warm wind kept the sweat at bay. I rode between fields of soybeans and corn, under the cooling shade of roadside trees, past farm houses and barns. Killdeers, the little fakers, called my attention to themselves so I wouldn't notice their nests. Passing me carefully, a few cars and pickup trucks went on their hurried way. I enjoyed the scenery.

Toward the end of the trip, as I relished the easy speed coming down from an overpass, I realized that I hadn't thought a single thing for some time. I, who so often lives in my head, had not one thought for at least 10 minutes. I just rode. As that thought crossed my mind, another was on its heels: what if this is prayer? What if this bicycle ride, this joying in the golden sun and the warm wind, is wordless prayer? At that moment, I was absolutely sure that the entire experience connected me to God.

What if it's all prayer? All that we do, all is connected to God? What if the good, the bad, and the ugly are all done in his presence, and it is OUR presence that is missing? Our absence of mind, our absence of attention, our absence of desire - these don't prevent prayer, but rather prevent us from realizing our prayer, God's presence? Prayer is always without ceasing, we just don't know it.