Morning Prayer: 42/100. The Glutton Squirrel.

Squirrel Glutton hung upside down from the bird feeder chain and gorged on seeds. When I walked out on the patio, Squirrel scooted up the chain, along the limb, up the trunk.

He eyed me from a fork in the tree trunk. Just his ears, eyes and nose in sight. Squirrel’s steady gaze said, “You go back inside. I’ll go back for more seeds.”

I don’t mind squirrels at the bird feeder as long as they do no damage. But usually the feeder gets pulled to the ground and the seeds scattered. Watching Squirrel watch me, the idea hit me.

I went to the garage and returned with a plastic cup 1/2 filled with seed. I wedged the cup into the hollow in the oldest, lowest limb of the aging maple.

I looked up to Squirrel. Still two limbs above, watching, waiting for me to go inside. I withdrew only to the patio, to watch how quickly he discovered his buffet. He came down one limb, sat and looked at me. Suspiciously. Then another limb and now only one foot from the seed cup.

Squirrel perched stock-still and made sure I was equally motionless. I turned my head to watch a cardinal hen alight on the bird feeder. When I looked back, Squirrel squatted before the seed cup, chewing fervently.

For some 15 minutes he enjoyed perhaps the easiest meal he’s ever known. His face dipped into the cup, pulled back and with his hands cupped almost prayer-some before his face, he chewed with rapture. When he’d gotten every seed not stuck to the cup’s bottom, he gripped the lip and danced and pulled and gyrated until he unwedged the cup from its trough.

He gnawed around its lip. He turned it upside down and chewed the bottom edge. He shook it with his hands. He stared with such intensity, as if that would free the few remaining final seeds.

With a look of nonchalance, he let go of the cup. It bounced once on the limb, flipped over twice as it fell to the ground. Squirrel watched the spin. He darted up the tree, crossed over at the topmost limb to an adjacent oak. From that to the neighbor’s oak, then the next and the next. He leaped to their roof, scampered to its peak, and disappeared down the other side.

I like to think he went to tell his friends of the not so bad human living at my house. Of course, I expected no display of gratitude from Squirrel. I am thankful he ate his fill and left the feeder intact. I am thankful I got to watch it all.

And I am thankful it set me thinking about how often I seize the pleasure of something that comes my way until there’s nothing left but the remnants I cannot squeeze from the bottom of the cup. Whew. So thank you, Squirrel, for showing me myself.

And thank you, God, for showing me Squirrel.
I am reminded to pause when I so rapidly and fervently devour
whatever joy is put before me.
I am urged to slow down, even pause completely,
make the moment one of thanks
for the joy I am amidst.
The prosperity surrounding us has infinite forms,
limitless meaning, endless Supply.
Rather than accept it all as fore-granted,
I appreciate this chance to celebrate its instance
and its essence with “thank you.”
And, God, perhaps Squirrel did just that
with every dip into the cup.
And so I thank you, God.
Amen.

Love and blessings,

 

20 June ’16

Morning Prayer: 41/100. Light!

Last week one fluorescent tube in our laundry room gave up after 2 weeks’ flickering. After removing the fixture cover, taking out the tube with the blackened end and its partner, I gathered two tubes that have been in the garage since we moved into the house. Not sure if they were parting gifts from previous owner or detritus they didn’t care to discard.

Installed one then the other. No light. Reversed the tubes’ assignments. No light. Rotated them in the fixture. No light.

Hard to separate the dark garments from the whites, the gentle cycle from the turbo in an unlit laundry room.

Before conceding that we needed an electrician, I turned to my research source: Google. I learned a great deal.

A fluorescent bulb contains mercury vapor. The vapor receives an electric charge that produces a short-wave, ultra-violet light. That causes the phosphorous coating inside the tube to glow. Let there be light. An electricity ballast regulates the amount of current, keeping the light steady. Let it shine steadily.

We needed an electrician.

Sometimes the Light of Spirit flickers. Mine anyway. Sometimes it goes (or seems to go) completely out for a time. As with the laundry room light, it helps me to know where’s the misconnect. Does the tube need replacing? A heavy duty replenishment of the light that flows in each of us? Do I need to replace the ballast? How strong is the electric charge that produces the ray that charges my spiritual vapor and lights my core? Is it strong enough? Is it steady enough?

The beauty is that the Light is never out. The vapor is never without charge. The phosphorous is never not glowing.

I just don’t always see them.

Electrician of My Spirit,
you are the Source and the Supply of my energy, my power.
You provide your Light in and around my being.
When I sense my energy is flickering,
I need only call to you.
My spiritual ballast kicks in.
The steady and strong flow of my faith beams
throughout the vapor of my essence.
Faith becomes a charge greater than electricity,
ignites my glow, shoots short-wave Truth to my every cell.
Your Light, Sweet Spirit, is forever on.
And so it is in me. Amen.

Love and blessings,

 

16 June 2016

Morning Prayer: 40/100. The Door Problem.

I haven’t discovered the truth of the young boy’s freeing the 18-wheeler truck wedged beneath an overpass. Story is he suggested they let air out of the tires.

I have discovered the accuracy of his principle!

Cindy and I expected the delivery of a new chair for our living room. We wanted to move the older chair to the window in our bedroom. Cindy tried while I was at work. She told me her efforts got only as far as the bedroom door, where she discovered the chair was just too wide.

The boy and the tractor-trailer came to mind.

We lay a beach towel on the floor beside the chair. I turned the chair on its side, atop the towel. Cindy and I unscrewed each of the four 6-inch legs. I grabbed the edge of the towel and gingerly slid the chair down the hall, through the door and into the bedroom. We screwed the legs back on and uprighted the chair. 5 minutes, max.

Did that feel good!

Problems are as we define them. Therefore, we determine how (or if) we can solve them. In fact, problems are as we create them, for a problem has no reality until we give it definition as a problem.

Problem Definition 1: the chair would not go through the door. Impossible to solve.

Problem Definition 2: the chair is too large to go through the door. Difficult to solve.

Problem Definition 3: the chair, with its legs attached will not fit through the door. Solvable.

In and of itself, the chair was fine in the living room. The definition elements — chair, door, size, legs — make the problem solvable. Or not, if we define it as unsolvable.

So, what’s the blessing of this? Whether our problem is moving an 80,000 pound 18-wheeler or a 2-year old chair?

The blessing is we have the power to know every problem can be solved. We need only know we give it reality by defining it. We have the power to define it as solvable.

Reality is not what we experience. Reality is our reaction to the experience.

Living, Loving Good Friend!
How wonderful that you let us know we make our problems.
We may not cause them; we surely define them.
And knowing that, we know our definition can tell us
that we can solve the problem.
Big deal or little deal. Good deal either way.
This demonstrates the wonderful truth
that what we think determines our experience,
our reality.
Good Friend God, this freedom is such a gift.
The gift of letting go of problems.
The gift of enjoying solving problems.
The gift of realizing problems are no more real than we decide.
The gift of laughing in the face of problems.
The gift of laughing in the shower of solutions!
We thank you, God!
And so it is. Amen.

Love and blessings,

12 June 2016

Morning Prayer: 39/100. User-friendly Praying.

A couple of weeks ago I made May’s well-being calls to my list of people from church. Purpose of the call is to ask if they’d like a prayer and offer to share one with them. This time one person went into some detail about why s/he would like a prayer. I asked if they’d like me to pray or if they’d like me, along with God, to listen to their praying. The person quickly answered, “Oh no. I could never pray out loud. I have no idea what to say!”

I smiled because I’d just heard the individual saying their prayer in so many words. I recalled how often I have heard others say the same thing: “I would  not know what to pray!” Driving home I smiled at the idea that so many do not find praying user-friendly.

I spent some web-time researching “user-friendly”. Originally, the term referred to computer stuff like software and websites and applications. Different reports say the phrase first appeared in 1977, 1984, 1994…

As you’d expect it means “easy to use, operate, understand.” It means “easily operated and understood by means of a straightforward guide in jargon-free language.” It means “easy to learn to use.”

Guess I’m blessed that praying has always been user-friendly for me. I feel that’s because there’s not any definite, required, expected, or has-to-be-that-way method of praying. What makes some things not user-friendly is that you have to follow an exact procedure to make those things work.

Getting around websites, working software programs and manipulating mobile apps is not always free or easy. That’s why there are thousands of web postings that offer 3 or 5 or 10 or 12 or 25 ways to make this or that user-friendly. They all pretty much say if your users have to follow procedure, make it as painless as possible. And the tips are all intended to make it painless.

Let’s take 3 of those tips and apply them to praying. Let’s figure out how easy it is to make saying a prayer really user-friendly.

• Concise content. True for a website, true for a prayer. If you keep it short you don’t have to worry about remembering all you need to say or want to say. You don’t have to worry that you’ll repeat yourself because your prayer’s so long. You don’t have to worry that God will get tired of listening. (God never gets tired of listening, but there’s no need worrying about it anyway!)

• Intuitive. Another word might be heartspoken. Pray from your heart not with your mind. It’s the feelings you share, not the words you speak, that carry the meaning. That’s because it’s the feelings you have, not the thoughts you think, that generate your praying.

• Adhere to standards. For this one I’m definitely changing the words. Set your standards. Prayers do not have to begin with a standard greeting. Prayers do not have to end with “amen.” Prayers have no certain length, no prescribed tone of voice, no set number of heavenly words. Your prayer is your prayer. And God’s. Your standards let you pray the way you want which lets you be comfortable with how you pray. And once you set your standards, stick with them. Until they change.

Friendly Spirit,
You are so easy to talk to, to share with, to enjoy.
Thank you that we can learn and love
that praying is only as hard as we make it,
that praying is truly as easy as we want it.
You bless us with well-known prayers that inspire
and satisfy and motivate and calm.
As well you bless us with the freedom to pray
as we desire. To speak from our hearts,
to let our feelings flow seamlessly from us
to you.
Good Friend, let us remember and delight with
the ease, the simplicity, the pleasure that
any-way’s-the-right-way to pray with you.
And so we thank you! Amen!

Love and Blessings,

1 June ’16

 

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