Prayer

Often people will tell me that they are praying for Gregory and me. Other times people will ask us to pray for them or their loved ones. It is not that I mind, it is just that I am not sure "I believe."

When they say they are praying for us, I appreciate the love and understanding they are showing us. When asking us to pray for them, I appreciate the love and support for which they are asking.

We are not religious, we consider ourselves spiritual. We do not embrace any particular religion, Possibly Buddhism, which is more a belief system, is closer to what we do believe in. We do not pray or believe in some outside power taking care of us, we believe that God is within us, is us! I have written about this before.

My usual Facebook response to prayer, which I think serves the same purpose of making someone who has asked for our prayers feel heard is to say, "Sending positive healing thoughts to you and yours."

Recently this request was met by my further thoughts. Perhaps prayer is a way of centering oneself and focusing one's attention so action and/or thoughts can be directed towards new solutions, understandings, actions. I believe that the answer is within a person, not manifested in some outward diety or entity sitting on a throne in judgement of me.

I do not believe that begging, or bargaining, or feeling guilty is what a God would want from us. I think he/she would want us to have confidence in ourselves and know that we have all we need to make good decisions, come to good conclusions, take appropriate actions to solve our problems, to be good people ... or at least to be at peace if the difficulties cannot be solved/changed. And the courage to know and accept the difference?