On the Subject of Prayer

On the Subject of Prayer

Advent.2021.11.30

Recently I read that Advent, the first season of the liturgical year, is “back to the future”.  It is a time of preparation and the first week is dedicated to the theme of hope.  The basis of prayer is hope – the expectation that the words of one’s prayer will effect a change.  That hope affects our future, an expectation based upon the past as we go forward into the future.  We will discuss more on that later in this series but for today, let’s center our thoughts on prayer.

There is a Jamaican proverb that states “Prayer only from the mouth is no prayer.”  Earlier this year I was at a branch of our local library.  I was in something of a hurry and as I looked for my much-needed reference book, I spied a volume shelved incorrectly.  Combine a habit gained while working in a library with a pet peeve involving books that one needs and cannot find because they are not shelved properly and you will realize why I picked up this orphan book and felt I really had to – positively had to – reshelve it correctly.  Then I took a good look at the book.

How a book that belonged in religion and spirituality ended up in the middle of gardening and cookbooks is a mystery.  Like most public libraries, this one shelves books according to the Dewey Decimal System.   The Dewey Decimal System is an American invention, a system for classifying books first developed by librarian Melvil Dewey in 1876.  Prior to Dewey’s system of arranging books according to a numerical designation based upon subject matter, books were catalogued by date of acquisition.  Currently over two hundred thousand libraries in over one hundred and thirty countries use the Dewey Decimal System as does the Online Computer Library Center.

It can at times be difficult to know exactly how a book will be classified if one is not familiar with the system and even if one has a great understanding of it, sometimes classification is a matter of opinion.  Philosophy books are found under the “100” heading while religion books are located under “200”.  Whether something is philosophical or religious can be a matter of context or the classifier’s opinion.  One must have some patience then when books in one area are found in another.  Prayer and cooking, I felt, were enough of a different subject matter that they should not be confused.  I did check the book’s spine and saw that it had the correct Dewey designation; it had simply be put down one the wrong bookcase.  Then I looked even closer at the book.  What truly interested me from that point forward was the name of the author.  “Surely it is a pseudonym” I thought confidently.  It did seem a bit corny, trite even, was my next thought.

The book in my hand that needed to find its proper shelf home was titled “Praying for Strangers”.  The author whose name caught my eye was …River Jordan.  As I mentioned before, I was in a hurry and yet, the author’s name really caught my attention.  I didn’t have the time to read the back cover which usually contained the author’s bio so I did the next best thing – I checked the book out.  That way I could resolve my curiosity about the author’s name at home when I had more time.  Then I could determine if the author’s obvious pen name was lever, corny, or inspired.  In today’s high stakes marketing world, everything on the book jacket is scrutinized for its appeal, even the author’s name.  This one had certainly captured my attention.

What I expected with this book was not what I received.  I thought the book was a manual about praying, perhaps a collection of written prayers.  I was positive the author’s name was a pseudonym, a pen name.  I was incorrect in both of those expectations.  The author’s name really is River Jordan and she has quite a few books published, although not in the religious genre.  “Praying for Strangers” is not a how-to book; in fact, many would call it self-help rather than religious or spiritual.  (Self-help would be a different Dewey classification entirely.)  The book is actually a diary, a journal that began out of a frustrating few minutes.

Much about life starts with “a few minutes of frustration”.   A bully can begin a person’s downward spiral into suicide with a few minutes of frustration.  A couple, caught up in the throes of divorce, a time of pain and anguish, hurl insults at each other in a few minutes of frustration.  A man reaches behind his head as he experiences a few minutes of frustration on the highway and fires the shotgun he’s positioned in the gun rack of his truck.  At the beginning of this book, the author tells about going to a public restroom and overhearing a woman in a neighboring stall berating a small child who is wearing blue shoes.  The author imagines a variety of scenarios in which she plays hero, rescuing the child and criticizing the verbally abusive woman but both have left by the time the author exists her own stall.  All the author can do is pray.

I seriously doubt there is anyone who has not uttered a prayer.  I am certain there are those out there who will claim they never have but I think they might be forgetting their own “few minutes of frustration”.  Quaker Richard Foster describes prayer as “finding the heart’s true home”.  For some people, prayer is conversation with a spirit.  For others it is an intensely deep religious event. 

During this series we will delve into the art of prayer, not so much from a specific theological perspective but from a more all-encompassing human angle.  My own system of classification of these daily essays or blog posts is based upon the calendar of the Christian year.  Sunday was New Year’s Day in the liturgical calendar, the first day of the Christian calendar, the first day of the season of Advent.  Advent is perhaps one of the best known of all the seasons.  Stores sell advent calendars which help count down the days until Christmas with everything from candy canes to toys to scripture and quotations.  Hallmark even based a movie on an Advent Calendar that was, fittingly enough for this series, a time capsule.

I recently read the newly published book “Mitka’s Secret”.  We will discuss the book in depth later  during this series but what really struck me was the hope lived in this book.  Mitka is the name of a man born a Jew in Nazi Germany.  He spent his early life in three different concentration camps and then was “rescued” by a Nazi officer to become a child slave.  Discovered four years after World War II ended, Mitka was truly rescued by Americans and has lived much of his life in the United States.  He kept his early life a secret but he never lost hope in the prayers of his heart.  Belief is a most powerful thing indeed.

Whether you consider Advent a season of preparation or introspection, we can most likely all agree that it is a season of waiting in great anticipation.  The same could be said about prayer, especially the great anticipation part.  Prayer can seem so natural and yet, it remains clouded in mystery.  Some cultures use a prayer wheel while others have prayer beads.  This most ancient form of communication is most curious since it involves conversing with the unknown, the unproven, and the unseen.  Do you believe in the power of prayer?  How do you define it?  Most importantly, can anyone pray?  I believe in the power of prayer …  or do I just believe?

Magnificent Mysteries

Magnificent Mysteries

Subways are a great place to hear interesting conversations. Strangers exchange comments about anything and everything and occasionally, so do friends. Recently, an acquaintance overheard a commuter offer an embroidered handkerchief to a young child who was happily smearing chocolate ice cream all over his face. The frazzled young mother hurriedly pushed the heirloom handkerchief away from her son’s outreached hand. She thanked the stranger, graciously refusing the offer and referring to how the chocolate would have stained the linen. The older woman laughed and she herself wiped the little boy’s face. “This is why I made it,” she explained. “I’ve carried in my pocketbook for several years, hoping that one day I would have the chance to offer it to someone. Now I can go home and remember. I do hope there is a little stain because it will be like the smile on your son’s face and brighten my day as I remember.” What seemed like a marring stain to one was instead a remembrance of the joy of a child to another.

Perception is an interesting thing and, depending on where one stands, lives, worships, breathes, etc., varies second to second. The word comes from The Latin “perception” which meant to sense and today refers to the organization and interpretation or identification of things sensed. The purpose of this is to identify what our environment is, to understand it, and to determine what it represents.

The five senses of taste, touch, smell, sight, and sound are physical and/or chemical consequences of things that have affected our sensory organs. These organs are directly a part of our nervous system. The perception is that someone with an acute nervous response is a “nervous Nellie” or a jittery person, overly emotional and perhaps a tad unstable. The person with great sensory responses, though, is someone who is finely tuned to the nervous responses and interpretations of their senses.

A telephone rings. Sounds simple but is it really? How the phone itself produces the sound is but one part of the equation. The airwaves are received by our auditory senses which then convey the stimulus to our brain which in turns interprets it based upon known experiences. Take our subway commuters in the first paragraph. Most if not all were wearing shoes. We would have known that through the sense of vision. The faraway or distal stimulus of the shoe is seen in the form of light (or the absence thereof) which is then received by the retina which serves as the proximal or close stimulus. The brain interprets this stimulus and a format of a shoe is recognized. This final stage is called the precept. And all of this occurs literally in the blinking of an eye!

Perception often determines our response and when we are confronted with the unknown, that response is often fear. We sometimes forget to be delighted by the unknown. Instead of relishing the chance to learn something new, we respond with distrust. A new kid in school generally has a difficult time until someone finds a common element between themselves and the new kid. Those not looking for this common element who will ignore that we are all human and indeed share a great many common things, will sometimes turn to bullying or gossip.

Death Valley is a wonderful place of contradictions. One might think since very little grows there that the starkness of the location would render it useless as a tourist destination but that would be incorrect. It is one of the most popular locations for people to visit in the United States of America. The perception of nothing there belies the wonder of its creation and its grandeur.

Death Valley has long been the location of one of the country’s greatest topographical mysteries. For years, scientists have attempted to both prove and explain the so-called sailing stones. Within Death Valley National Park is a location known as Racetrack Playa. The area is a scenic dry lake. Once filled with water from a glacier or other prehistoric body of water, the area is now a dust-laden flat area. The name Racetrack was given to it when scientists and park rangers noticed lines that appeared. The lines seemed to be made by boulders, some weighing as much as seven hundred pounds or three hundred-plus kilograms. These lines or tracks reached lengths of over eight hundred feet or two hundred meters and were both straight and curved.

About eight years ago a scientist from the National Aeronautics and Space Agency decided to compare the meteorological settings of the Racetrack Playa with that of a lake on Titan, one of the moons of Saturn. Instead he became fascinated with the legends and lore regarding the “sailing stones”. Theories to explain the movement involved everything from aliens to ghosts and the general perception was that something out of this world or common science was the reason for the movement of these stones which seemed to move all on their own.

One theory offered for the sailing stones had been the wind but winds alone could not account for the movement. The NASA research team, after several years seem to have arrived at an answer. The research team deduced that, under certain winter conditions in Death Valley, enough water and ice could form to float the rocks across the muddy bottom of Racetrack Playa in a light breeze, leaving a trail in the mud as the rocks moved. Thus the mystery of this sailing stones of Death Valley seems to have been solved. However, to some, this is too simple an answer and their perception is that other forces outside of our knowledge or world must be involved.

We all encounter those incidents, those sailing stones of life. Sometimes it is a perfect plan that ends up in failure without explanation. Sometimes it is an unexplained detour in life when we thought things were going great. We need to rely not just on our five basic senses but also our sense of faith during those times. Our understanding of the spirit of life and the empowerment we gain from our beliefs will provide us with a precept for living successfully. We need to trust that whatever the distal stimulus, our beliefs are enough to withstand the proximal and lead us to the right path. When we allow our heart to be the eyes of our soul, then our perception will lead us to a productive, peaceful life. With faith we can sail through the dry, desolate periods of life.

The only mystery of life is why we complicate the basic act of living with love, peace, and respect with ego and greed. A life lived with integrity can weather any storm and survive to thrive. Life is too magnificent to waste.

A Simple Yes

A Simple Yes!

Pentecost 2021.11.02

Alan Feinstein is an American success story that almost did not happen.  Born and raised in Massachusetts he graduated Boston University with degrees in economics and journalism.  He wrote advertising copy for a show company but felt incomplete so he went back to school and earned a teaching degree which he used to teach high school.  His journalistic roots never left him, though, and he began a weekly column in a small paper.

A visiting personage read the column and contacted Feinstein, asking for permission to publish his column in newspapers in countries he visited.  This Indian businessman felt others would be interested in the American’s economic viewpoints.  Feinstein never met the businessman nor knew where he traveled but agreed.  Soon his column appeared in papers worldwide and he had gained international attention and recognition as an international syndicated columnist.  Having recently withdrawn from teaching to begin a financial newsletter, Feinstein found success – all because of a good deed from a total stranger.

Soon after the Indian businessman unknowingly helped his newsletter become successful, Feinstein’s wife, a native of Thailand, decided to accept a residency in the United States.  Feinstein began offering a guarantee on the advice he wrote and his side business of selling collectibles became a success.  In fact, he was so successful that he began a scholarship program in 1999 for students who were doing good deeds.  This was three years after his annual one million dollar giveaway to agencies combatting hunger.  A public television program followed and school programs were begun to encourage people to do good deeds.

Today the one million dollar giveaway has been suspended but over one hundred and fifty thousand Feinstein scholars are still supported through the Feinstein Foundation in their academic and good citizenship efforts.  This is all possible because Alan Feinstein once said “YES!” to a stranger who wanted to share his newspaper column.

In the United States alone it is estimated that there are fourteen million people who do not know from where their next meal is going to come.  Over half of those once had a home and guaranteed meal but life happened and their situations changed.  Doing something good for them can be as simple as serving a meal at a local soup kitchen, donating food to a local food pantry, or hosting a dinner with some friends and then collecting donations which are then given to a local charity that feeds the hungry.

Maybe academics are your forte.  Offer to tutor a child.  Local Salvation Army organizations and Big Brother, Big Sister groups are always happy to have tutors and mentors work with their participants.  Other groups like the Boy Scouts and Girls Scouts are always in need of volunteers.  Some libraries have reading programs like Reading Is Fundamental.  Thirty-four percent of all children starting school lack the language and reading skills necessary to thrive in an academic setting.  You could be the key to a child’s success.

Alan Feinstein believes “Helping to better the lives of others is the greatest of all achievements.”  We all lead busy lives but I promise you any time donated to help others will pay you back tenfold in good will, good feelings, good health, and success.  It is as simple as saying “Yes” when the opportunity arises.