The Conversation

I had an interesting, deep moment this week with another human being in the center of chaos. We wondered aloud how things would all turn out, and I said to her that we've got to ride the wave of chaos and not struggle against it. It inevitably will come crashing to shore in it's own time, and we will find ourselves standing in a very different place, with our feet on firm ground.

I honestly don't know where that came from, except to say that sometimes in the simple dialogues, there are moments when the Creator speaks through us.

This led us to a discussion of what we'd do when our time would come and we would meet our Maker. My companion said she'd have a lot of questions to ask. I thought on it and explained that I'd have none, most likely. I never ask a question unless I really want to know the answer. I don't know how I came to that place within myself, and can't even say it's a good or a bad thing. It's just a stance I take with life. Presumably, it would be the same with my Maker.

Afterward, I did what most people would call prayer, and I call it that, too. But it got me to thinking, when we talk about prayer, what is it we're really talking about? I decided to look up the word, and it says it comes from a Latin derivative meaning "to obtain by entreaty." I looked that up, too and it's got to do with pleading or persuading.

That's when I realized that what I call "prayer" isn't that for me, with the Great Apportioner that made us all. I don't plead with him, because I respect Him, and if something's happening that's hard, there's absolutely got to be a lesson with it, in my experience. I may not learn it now, or ever, but it's going to come whether I see it or not. I don't attempt to persuade Him, because I already know he's on my side.

What I think it is is that I have a conversation, but I call it a prayer. Sometimes, it doesn't even feel like I need to say or think anything at all, because the Great Apportioner already knows me and the situation and everybody I am talking about. There's a plan and it's made and I've just got to get a bead on tracking what part of it I am meant to be involved with and what part of it I am not. I think that the times in the past when I've pleaded or persuaded have been the times when I am not clear with or don't particularly like the part I'm meant to do or the part I'm not meant to be involved in.

The rest of the process, what might be called the continuation of the prayer, is what I do when I move next. There is a call to action manifested in the process, because otherwise, for me, the whole thing's been about words and ideas. Words and ideas have their utility, but prayer manifested into conscious daily action is an entirely different thing.

By this, I don't mean continual beseechment throughout the day. I mean instead a dialogue or conversation between me and the Great Apportioner, as I am taking the steps that I feverently hope are the correct actions. The great challenge to me is having the proper instincts to know what it is that I am meant to do and what it is that I am not, placing myself in service to the process, rather than attempting to commandeer it, unless of course, that's my given role to do.

Usually when I think of trusting my instincts, it relates to knowing if I am reading the situation and other people in it properly. But really, in the process of prayer or dialogue with the spiritual, I must reorient myself. The trusting of my instincts relates to a course of action on a path, rather than on the surrounding terrain.

Do you make your way up the mountain, whatever mountain it is you're climbing, by saying "I can trust that tree, this rock, that person, this compass?" Those all might serve as markers or guidance, but the true way to get there is to trust the inner guidance that you're given.

In the moments you have trusted it, what has come to pass?