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It's kind of amazing that I'm up here this Sunday morning
talking to all of you about
prayer
since I have learned more about prayer from all of you...
than almost anybody else in my life
learned from being in this church, learned from going to chorale rehearsals,
learned from going to praise and worship services on friday evenings,
learned from what I'm experiecing right now
[there]
What I'm feeling right now... I guess, they say, the presence of spirit
around me,
inside me,
among us
what Pastor Davis has told me he calls the holy spirit...
I feel the freedom to express my deepest longings...
and disappointments
and still know i'm still loved and surrounded by love
that won't let me down
it's a powerful, an incredible feeling...
and if you want to know the truth...
it's kind of a high... for a gray-haired, middle-aged woman...
who grew up...
who grew up...
and I'm telling you the truth this morning...
in New England, where those pilgrims landed...
It's an honor for me to be with you here this morning,
to tell you of my own story and my own journey with prayer
you may or may not be surprised to hear that if I'm a minister today, it's
because of the way i felt myself
break open in a prayer circle
about twenty years ago
it's true
it's an experience of prayer that compelled me in that very moment
to devote myself and my life to god
who i often call in my own private prayer life holy mother god
i guess i had no idea and i mean no idea
what that vow would mean
are wary when lead me
on that date when you sit down
might here
might forget it
and they make it kinda shy percent not actually gone to stand up in pulpit
simply to work
and i don't know why
in for a five years
before my husband headcount here tonight in the i did i ever think about coming
to live in oklahoma
have the right side of it on a piece of paper on that fateful day on my alter at
home in every wired on that he's the paper is as to today
as it was twenty years ago
well that's the say we never know what's going to happen when we pray
about life you know more about me i want to talk a little bit my back
hannah who we met this morning
prizes like several stories in hebrew and christian scriptures about women who
are childless and we meet them and then are blessed
by god would miraculous pregnancies
hannah is one sarah is another go back i've another great shows another
elisabeth is another there are several
mister lazer often used to demonstrate but that's how are you
and the power of prayer
but today
i want to talk to you less about the power of prayer to change the reality
around us and what about the power of prayer to change
the reality inside us
did you have any talk about the specifics of pair the how the way they
are the women the why affair
is just like in music
two-second castesystem using cash honors and styles techniques and technologies
of prayer
he says this morning is how
can appraise
after everyone
houses painted offerings are made hennessey's behind all alone
on the temple steps
she presents herself not to the priest but to the lord himself
and she makes of our or promise
she tells dot she will give up her son and service
to the temple if the lord
will give her a child's
can appraise silently
and she is so intense and so sincere so filled with purpose and longing her lips
move although no sounds come out of her mouth
she prays her heart out before the lord
but here are the priest
this is n_p_r_'s she's drug
this is what he says how why will you make a drunken spectacle of yourself
later wining the priest grumbles
but hannah answers
i'm jumping either wine or strong drink
i've been pouring out my soul to the lord
you have to stop here for a second after
marlon make an observation before
and i have some people
are comfortable at rock concerts bleeding their hands high above their
heads swinging in singing to the music better still uncomfortable
without high-energy energy be love here
in worship
and i have haha moments when i imagine myself sitting on the steps like anna
hearing my priest or my pastor acute
when i'm in frank use me being drunk
i wondered if letting ourselves go
letting us of the free in which it together is a hard because one
some of us are afraid someone will judge us
and to because
because we are sober
because we can't rely on drugs
or alcohol to help us release inhibitions in that way
so i'm gonna speak for myself
pyrrhic not that general we
cuz i know sometimes on
afraid
to let myself go completely and praise and worship because i've been tops
much like that agencies that support out my soul to the lord
to express their deepest longings of my heart locally will confuse and concerned
some people
even people close an important to me
that may make a time under the influence of something dangerous time on rational
and now
untrustworthy
so uh... i thank you all this morning for teaching me
and it isn't so
but leaping out of the priest knows she's realizes she's not drunk a crazy
and lessons learned asks
at the board of israel answer her prayer
so i'm curious this morning i wanna ask you how do you experienced prayer
at that point out of your soul to the lord's resilience
pouring out a sudden but i think u
and how do you create differently now than the way you were taught as a
child's
and how many of you act serious as the children were this morning about
different ways of praying
you find that i think you one last question
already pay in several different leave yourself
thank you incubators wait another cuz
i'm definitely answer yes to all those questions
and here's part of my story
i want to talk to pay for child
didn't learn how or where when or why it took a
the great thing about that is it allowed me to discover prairie my own time
inorganic and open way
i could address the holy in a variety of reacting there is a man started being a
minister i wasn't quick to judge cases patients in the hospital
for their beliefs or their lack of the lease
during my years in seminary though i also know that my mother
although she never told me
still recited the lord's prayer every night
before she went to sleep
that my mother scientifically minded humanist psychologist and reference
librarian
how many you know how you know
c_n_b_c_ predicts prayer life what does that mean
about what they are me
to get that have to tell you a story a true story
that something happened when i still lived in maine
i've been thinking about it lately because of the four women who were shot
and killed not far from nyc where i live here in tulsa on east fifty-fifth street
some of you know i walk in the morning
on this particular walk i was just coming to the top
a small hill when i heard
what sounded like gunshots
i stopped and waited for the silence the reassuring silence that would mean
headed in a car backfiring or a random rifle shot
this time though instead of silence i heard
a woman
yelled someone call nine one white house
someone call nine one one
instantly i turn
hysteria walking and then a running back downhill towards
the woman's voice thinking those workshops
there's a real science
something's wrong
and yes i got home and raising the flag in front of the coast guard station i
stopped
askin if you've heard the same thing i've heard and then i just ran on
in a driveway the bottom the hell i saw something out girl with her arms
stretched
high over her head
walking away from a house
toward the road i was on
as a vent hole up toward her i could see she was holding the phone
and a smaller boy with walking with him
rise block with mine
staring into my eyes he said help me
my daddy has killed my mommy
my daddy has killed my grandmother
lead time she finished her second sentence i was at her side
to give me the phone and we took each other's candidate reenact wants
into the middle of the road together
as i told a man on the other end of the line there we would wait for him until
he got there
we'd stand right where we wear and wait
i hung up
and the coast guard cemented followed not far behind us turned us
toward the coast guard station saying let's get you off the street
inside
without a corner of the room
them to settle in and the coast guard guys
brought us doughnuts and drinks
brought us doughnuts and drinks
and the next
hours listening to the girl who was nine and a boy who was six
tell me about what they had seen
i listen to what they thought was true
and what they hoped
was not
when i finished telling me about what he just happened
they started to tell me about their mom
about how she told them stories at that time
about the songs she saying to them
and they had trouble falling to sleep
about how she insisted
they do their homework even about how she sometimes that angry at them
when they didn't
and i have seen need them clean up their roof
when a man out of stories
and steam i hurt myself asking them
would you like me to pray
they nodded yes
as already in seminary
and i had just set up a semester of chaplaincy with my local police
department believe it or not
i had no idea
when i was gonna say
i don't remember every word
it said something like that
dear god, we are afraid,
and we are tired
and we are very very sad
we want all the people we love
to be alive
it's hard to know right now what's real
and what's not
please give us the strength to face
whatever comes next
thank you for keeping us safe.
i remember a long
silence.
and a few more words
coming out
i opened my eyes and looked right into theirs
if I know anything in this moment
i know your mother is happy that you're here
that you're safe
that you're alive
this is... a good... thing...
thank you
in that moment
there were lots of reasons not
to pray
my words
couldn't fix
anything
my prayer wouldn't and couldn't make any difference in the outcome
i didn't know the right words to use, i didn't know how to start or how to end
or who I was thanking.
on the one hand
how could i pray
and on the other hand
how could i not
but i know today is i'm glad i did
and also know that my presence before i spoke was already a prayer
on my attention and intention was focused on the children in those first
hours
after they had seen what children should never see
all of that was prayer, all of that was being present to what was real
being present to...
and not turning away from the violence and the loss
and also being present in not turning away from the truth of the love in them
that was still so
real
prayer is paying attention to what is most real
it is not in reciting words that have become meaningless, although it can be
reciting words
which have surprisingly retain their meaning despite
the passing of years and the changes in one's theology
as in my mother's case
before invite someone into my office to sit and talk
i ask for the meditations of my heart the words of my mouth the thoughts of my
mind the movements of my body
all support the presence of compassion and kindness
an understanding
and that my words be pleasing to my lord my god
but i'm beginning to understand is i've been praying all my life
just didn't know it
i really didn't know what i'd say the same way before i stepped into this very
pulpit
all those years right at the moment is center myself before making it difficult
phone call
when i asked for wisdom and insight before confronting one of my children
when i got their behavior was beyond acceptable
i was calling on the better angels of my only chair calling on the wisdom of my
ancestors and calling on the presence of the holy spirit to guide
i was praying i'd just didn't
nellis
doesn't make you religious
is one of the points this morning and you don't have to be religious to pray
third infinite number of ways to pay because the phrase the common response
to our common everyday experience
and being alive in the world
when i finished a siesta
assassin offend a_t_f_'s
isn't it as a catholic mass
are true
and israelis
distinct down onto her knee
even repeat the same fires over and over again among strangers she has suddenly
aware of how big
and how small
her life is
when did you dollins when he stands to sway in saying his morning prayers he's
also responding to the wonder of waking up to a new day
when the muslim washes his eyes and ears lips hands and feet then
prostrate himself on the floor five times a day he is physically mentally
and psychologically
realigning himself with his highest hopes and aspirations
to the greatest good
when the catholic pays the rosary when they can see a lot
counterclockwise three times of planting the tampa
when the yogi practices
poses when the christian uses less inspection
and centering prayer aspires to pay
without ceasing day-in and day out hall
all are returning to acquire commitments
to use their attention and net intention to respond
silently and
tenderly
to this world
which we inhabit together
world which is so off and beyond our control
the wii we pray is shaped by culture but why do we pay a universal
widely praised the reason i'm minister today
so honestly what happened
that weekend
twenty years ago
the leader teacher with using ancient
payer techniques and teachings to bring us into a relationship with the holy
i can remember everything we did because that one will
only overshadows all the rest
i know my heart
and abrupt open exposing something i had never touched felt before
a place inside me
wet i couldn't have done
a place
i could return see and listen for the presence
and guidance of a dot i could not only love
and adore
some of them around now to make sure now do you think i've been drinking this
morning
the case
against prayer isn't hard to make
if prayer works
some say it dot answered our prayers love in so many things just wouldn't
happen
our husbands will die of cancer
our nephews will lose their lives in afghanistan are wives then leave us
our daughters wouldn't be addicted to drugs
it would be having such a hard time going cold turkey with a drinking
problem
and a whole slew left
in more serious things would happen
we wouldn't be able to stick to our diets
i prayed about them
that dream car we wanted for so long we have done that job i've been given that
promotion
whether it be well peace
out suddenly have enough to eat safe place to live a good education excellent
health care right myron
downers
friday
don't i say not if you want to change the world but do you know if you
you want to be changed to then you can change the world's
and there's evidence to support death
for ten years of my doctors and scientists and studying what's happening
in the brain when people are deep in prayer or meditation
medicine don't differentiate between the two
and uni of baroda neuroscientist at the university of pennsylvania and author of
several books including how god changes your brain
has been scanning gains for more than a decade
he said the more you focus on something whether that's not
or are they seeing or football or god
and we'd advise qualities of kindness contraption generosity the more that
becomes a reality
the more heavy cons of written into the narrow connections
of your brain
what's really interesting is that whether you agree with getting the rate
of a methodist minister who's had intense
special experience is most of his life hearing the voice of god
fit into my hours impairs everyday
or
the brain and the doctor leads practiced
tibetan meditation for the last
twenty years a belief system in which they're is no god
their brains revealed the scene
pattern
the frontal lobe lights up with the intensity the concentration in the
parental loeb
associated with a sense of self
goes dot
when we unite
out attention and our intention we increase eka cassidy to feel
and shell compassion
it doesn't matter volcano meditating what cultivating in deepening are
longing to connect to the world around us to each other
to god into god in ox
and it changes our brains i'd just
bob acts
i sense a self feeds and we said if you were becoming part of the object of our
focus whatever it is the fact is that the moon rise the breed
patients generosity kindness
god and god bless
when it comes to the break
inhibits says special experience is spiritual experience in their priests
and energy which there is no mother and it's just hall
one
companies they work
i don't think eight-thirty actress needed a few people
you
collette
it's fascinating to understand sedalia modern technology that the brain is
malleable its plastic
we have removed the in remodeled by what we think and you
it's a little scary to that if you think about that
don't know what you think about all day long
coming into every detail every day at three walker we meditate every pregnancy
jim use that we've read and write to journal back shaping who we are
but it also means that every review i've resentment
and we call our friends all they want to complain
and were mentally listing all our faults and are for you both well that's also
who we become because
truly really in chile fundamentally materially and mentally spiritually and
structurally what we think
changes hui
are
when someone says high franny from now on i hope you'll realize you don't know
that i don't know that we don't know and we won't know what they mean last week
af
so that some of you activism at canteen
people represent the bride continuum of beliefs and practices at this church
represents and serves
what it means to them
if you're curious about but they said you can read simple gifts this month
and mean their responses to exercise we did together
and you can look on our face book page where many responses are posted
its importance
and then he said i care team
experiments and experience are different kinds of prayer
it's important if they do not like me
and the prayer territories wide open and they need signs and fence posts and
directions and a map
it is also participate all their lives and never stop paying
it's important for all of us
to experiment and experience different forms of prayer because in this amazing
congregations as an amazing time asian
well you will find yourself at the bedside if somebody were sitting in the
punitive to people
with different beliefs and practices different than your home
so can see members talk about it and we're talking about it this morning we
talk about the who and a lot and nowhere in the way and you know why
and here's what we decided to get it
i neglected to experiment in tests
easy answers for yourself pathetic as i said a few times demonstrate again
player is experience so and experimental
is that we came up with anyone can pray
anyways
and nowhere in this
now that i know my mother loves the lord's prayer and recite every night
that i find myself by her bed
when she's struggling to live
are ready to let go and i
i hope i'll remember to say and french
the way she's her dad and said it
since she was a child
that's what they have to use your
beetle non-slip salty fyi
it'll venue yen
dependability suspects
select and
como si and
andy language
anywhere
works
anytime that day and night
how
and when we pay is cultural the stronger the technique the technology our
knowledgeable as our brain
these many years later i am so grateful that phrase has become
away of allowing my breaking hearts every open instead of apart
to let my breaking car allow itself to long for healing to your gun express
all brains of freedom for myself and for others
is permission to want things to be true
even things that are beyond our power to control artifact
at seventeen cbs you into the limit its
but there's also a letting go releasing
let me express that deep desire for relief
for reconciliation and her response
we also release ourselves to accept
what is and well will be
not my real but by rail be done
how we hold our hands and arms if i've got open or closed about what is is
there soccer
out at the dance or seeing
or hold our fingers like this
when you are fall on the ground or speak entitled or shake
out or right
if we had to faction fat
acts we are always fencing our attention and focusing are intention
act these
all fred
strikes me never flights prayer anyone
basically opera in in that moment someone says yes
and we know why we're praying
the predicate in not moment when they needed deepest shoes we can't acts
intentions at all of our attention remaining someone's hopes
and fears and frustrations injuries and insecurity and longing
we speak
in prayer mode to hear the west spring summer heights into honor their
responses we hear in return
images in the sensations the words inspirations are to rise up enough
when we feel another person suffering
when we recognize another person's deep
beauty
when we desire another person's liberation
and everything takes practice
we practiced together and the loan
so if you're gonna tractor
there just a few things are getting the distillate actually at the will
and the way
i don't have here a quake
well you're pure kind of cops out
you're gonna need a will and away
to focus yet attention and your intention
soviet he suggested some people make a part of their health
a special place for prayer
i have an alter at home or
if you don't have one you might want to try and making one
something the middle of the night is the perfect time for prayer
the house is quiet
and the children are asleep
there's no priest or pastor
if no styles are sister did tell you you're doing it the wrong way
'cause there's no wrong way
it's actually holly taxi maybe discussion dishonestly or focus
you can use the book apology
well your favorite schedule regular preachers songs like nature itself is a
sacrament
so stepping outside tomorrow at god's creation might be the way you that go
and that god in
might wanna take notes and intention to well let's see what happens
but they need if you follow that longing you feel within and stand those claims
you will find your way
i say when i'm thinking about doing it
i'll let you know how it goes
i'm thinking about inviting guide to come with
any on those morning walks
and taken to twenty years
and striking up a conversation with my god
and seeing what happens
i'm kind of excitement
funds for you
as we begin this month and focus on fair and spiritual practice together as a
community act
we need to act
two people
do you play
and what do you mean when you say you do
and what you mean if you say you don't
and i recommend that you
ask someone that you know well
and that you also ask
somebody that you don't know well
do you pray
and what do you mean when you say you do
or don't
because we know it's written in the beginning with the word
we know words are powerful we know there a way to focus our attention and
intention
we know that the sculpt and restart and read
destruction our brains so we truly act made and we have also the potter
it's good to know today that those children
are teenagers now
they're alive and well i couldn't leave this morning about telling you that
after the tragedy they went to live in aunt and uncle
in california
after seeing and silence and joining with those children in a timeless place
beyond words i needed to offer upwards
which hopefully in some small way express but those two children
couldn't say for themselves
despite everything it's good to be alive
are very who lives
our prayer and you could say
and paying attention
living our lives that attention and intention everyday that might be the
most
important there
you ever say are ever
offer up to twenty text
surtax
let's play
let's keep on praying together
amen