Tuesday, July 11, 2006 at 2:02am
The greatest war ever written
Column: Writing Down Your Soul
In her "Spiritual Geography" books, Janet Conner walks beside the broken hearted, guiding and encouraging them as they travel through the seven countries of spiritual healing. Everyone's journey begins in the Country of Betrayal with a relationship trauma, and proceeds through the Countries of Pain, War, Illusion, Surrender, and Choice. The journey culminates with the miracle of forgiveness and the receipt of a whole, holy, and healed heart in the Country of Peace. Today, we conclude our review of the Country of War
The greatest war prayers have already been written — the Psalms. They implore God for assistance with every traumatic situation, enemy attack, painful emotion, and debilitating fear a human can experience. The good stuff is there, too: the ecstasy, the joy, the gratitude, and the peace and love of God. But for a traveler buffeted by the vagaries of War, there are lots of gory battles to relish, plenty of defeats to mourn, and even a few delicious victories to celebrate.
Many people avoid the Psalms because they revel in every ounce of revenge a human has ever felt. The psalmists devote a lot of words to all the violent ways God could and, as far as the psalmist is concerned, should — brutalize their enemies. My personal favorite is the psalmist's exhortation to God in Psalm 58 to blast wicked judges: God, break the teeth in their mouths.
I totally understood that psalmist! Six times I went to court to get my son supervised visitation and six times the judge scowled at me and sent me home. No matter what evidence I produced, I was never able to get the legal system to protect my child. If I could have gone back in time, I would gladly have knelt in the sand beside the man who wrote Psalm 58 and screamed that prayer to heaven with him.
All that struggle and fury is precisely why the Psalms are the perfect prayers for your journey through the Country of War. The psalmists suffered what you suffer. They fought the battles you fight. They bandaged the same wounds, cried the same bitter tears of defeat, and longed for the same day of victory. Day after day, they begged God to wreak havoc on their foes. Night after night, they struggled to make sense of their tribulations.
The object of your travels through War is not to win; it is to acquire wisdom. Wisdom to figure out what to do and how to do it. Wisdom to choose right action, right intention, right use of power. Wisdom to fight for what is just and protect the unprotected. Wisdom to discern the difference between struggling for the good and destroying for the satisfaction of inflicting pain.
If there is any question in your mind about the consequences of not seeking this wisdom, watch Ken Burn's The Civil War. You will discover, hour after numbing hour, that there are similarities between your family's civil war and the nation's Civil War. Unfortunately, the greatest similarity is the potential for total destruction in the wake of total enmity.
Writing your own psalms of War will open your soul to the crucial gift of practical Wisdom. This Wisdom can guide you through the Country of War, teaching you to stand up for yourself, to arm yourself properly, and even to fight — but to fight without destroying your life and your children's lives.
Look through the Psalms and pick out several that speak to you. If you're unfamiliar with the Psalms, read 22, 55, 58, 59, 64, and 142 to get a flavor for them. Notice how they are constructed. Typically they open with something like "Bless my soul," or "Hear my prayer." Basically the psalmist is beseeching God to, "Listen up!" Start your personal psalm with a salutation that opens God's ear to you and your ear to God's.
Next, the psalmist unburdens his or her soul with a detailed description of all the dreadful things that are happening. In today's language it might sound like: "You're not gonna believe this, God, but first they did this, and then they did that, to me. And then, oh God, here comes the worst, when they were finished doing all those terrible things, they did this even worse thing to me!" You won't have any trouble knowing what to write here.
Just don't make the mistake of glossing over this part thinking God knows what happened so why bother writing it. You can't acquire the wisdom of right action until you step back and observe your situation fully. Give yourself an eagle's vantage point, and from the sky look down and record what you see. Describe your opponent's actions and your actions. Truthfully. Pay attention to what you are learning as you tell God your war story and ask for help.
After describing the awful mess of their lives, psalmists typically declare a joyful love of God. But just declaring it is not enough — not if you want wisdom. Look at what the psalmists do. In almost every Psalm they tell God what they are going to do, how they are going to live, how they are going to follow spiritual law, how they are going to live a right kind of life. Sounds like a fairly feeble attempt at bargaining: "You do this for me and look at all the wonderful things I am going to do for You." But there's also a bit of wisdom wending its way into the psalmist's heart, and that's the part you want.
Somewhere in the psalm, there's also that lovely part of asking God to blast the enemy. If you feel it belongs in your prayer, go ahead and put it in. Tell God what you want. There are two blessings in this part of the prayer. First, you give the task of justice to God — a task that God handles a whole lot better than we humans. And second, you get the opportunity to look at what you've asked God to do. Study your words and imagine the consequences.
Consider the piles of dead bodies in The Civil Warand ask yourself: Is this truly what I want? Is this why I am fighting this battle? Is this the highest good for me? Is it the highest good for our children? Is it the highest good for my ex? (Here's a clue: Until you can ask God for your ex's highest good, you're not in sync with true wisdom.)
You will discover over the course of your pilgrimage through the Country of War that your requests to God change. You may start out asking God to reek vengeance on your ex, but by the time wisdom has worked her magic on you for a few months, you will find your requests becoming more internally focused, asking for things like wisdom to choose, guidance for the journey, strength to hold fast, courage to stand up under fire, and even an understanding heart.
As your prayers change, you will change. As you change, your journey will change. Squint into the distance and you will see your path out of War. When you get to the border, don't forget to read one last Psalm" Psalm 150, which ends with a joyful cry, Alleluia!
— — —
Janet Conner, S.E. (Spiritual Explorer), is an expert on the power of practical spirituality to heal your broken heart and transform your world. She is the cartographer of the map of spiritual healing and author of the seven travel guides in the Spiritual Geography series. In addition to divine dialogue, she welcomes human conversation at {email janetconner@tampabay.rr.com}janetconner@tampabay.rr.com{/email}. © copyright 2006 by Janet Conner
— — —
ReligionAndSpirituality.com is a big tent for all expressions
of faith and spirituality, neither excluding nor favoring any.
All opinions expressed belong to the writer alone, and are
not necessarily shared by ReligionAndSpirituality.com.
The greatest war prayers have already been written — the Psalms. They implore God for assistance with every traumatic situation, enemy attack, painful emotion, and debilitating fear a human can experience. The good stuff is there, too: the ecstasy, the joy, the gratitude, and the peace and love of God. But for a traveler buffeted by the vagaries of War, there are lots of gory battles to relish, plenty of defeats to mourn, and even a few delicious victories to celebrate.
Many people avoid the Psalms because they revel in every ounce of revenge a human has ever felt. The psalmists devote a lot of words to all the violent ways God could and, as far as the psalmist is concerned, should — brutalize their enemies. My personal favorite is the psalmist's exhortation to God in Psalm 58 to blast wicked judges: God, break the teeth in their mouths.
I totally understood that psalmist! Six times I went to court to get my son supervised visitation and six times the judge scowled at me and sent me home. No matter what evidence I produced, I was never able to get the legal system to protect my child. If I could have gone back in time, I would gladly have knelt in the sand beside the man who wrote Psalm 58 and screamed that prayer to heaven with him.
All that struggle and fury is precisely why the Psalms are the perfect prayers for your journey through the Country of War. The psalmists suffered what you suffer. They fought the battles you fight. They bandaged the same wounds, cried the same bitter tears of defeat, and longed for the same day of victory. Day after day, they begged God to wreak havoc on their foes. Night after night, they struggled to make sense of their tribulations.
The object of your travels through War is not to win; it is to acquire wisdom. Wisdom to figure out what to do and how to do it. Wisdom to choose right action, right intention, right use of power. Wisdom to fight for what is just and protect the unprotected. Wisdom to discern the difference between struggling for the good and destroying for the satisfaction of inflicting pain.
If there is any question in your mind about the consequences of not seeking this wisdom, watch Ken Burn's The Civil War. You will discover, hour after numbing hour, that there are similarities between your family's civil war and the nation's Civil War. Unfortunately, the greatest similarity is the potential for total destruction in the wake of total enmity.
Writing your own psalms of War will open your soul to the crucial gift of practical Wisdom. This Wisdom can guide you through the Country of War, teaching you to stand up for yourself, to arm yourself properly, and even to fight — but to fight without destroying your life and your children's lives.
Look through the Psalms and pick out several that speak to you. If you're unfamiliar with the Psalms, read 22, 55, 58, 59, 64, and 142 to get a flavor for them. Notice how they are constructed. Typically they open with something like "Bless my soul," or "Hear my prayer." Basically the psalmist is beseeching God to, "Listen up!" Start your personal psalm with a salutation that opens God's ear to you and your ear to God's.
Next, the psalmist unburdens his or her soul with a detailed description of all the dreadful things that are happening. In today's language it might sound like: "You're not gonna believe this, God, but first they did this, and then they did that, to me. And then, oh God, here comes the worst, when they were finished doing all those terrible things, they did this even worse thing to me!" You won't have any trouble knowing what to write here.
Just don't make the mistake of glossing over this part thinking God knows what happened so why bother writing it. You can't acquire the wisdom of right action until you step back and observe your situation fully. Give yourself an eagle's vantage point, and from the sky look down and record what you see. Describe your opponent's actions and your actions. Truthfully. Pay attention to what you are learning as you tell God your war story and ask for help.
After describing the awful mess of their lives, psalmists typically declare a joyful love of God. But just declaring it is not enough — not if you want wisdom. Look at what the psalmists do. In almost every Psalm they tell God what they are going to do, how they are going to live, how they are going to follow spiritual law, how they are going to live a right kind of life. Sounds like a fairly feeble attempt at bargaining: "You do this for me and look at all the wonderful things I am going to do for You." But there's also a bit of wisdom wending its way into the psalmist's heart, and that's the part you want.
Somewhere in the psalm, there's also that lovely part of asking God to blast the enemy. If you feel it belongs in your prayer, go ahead and put it in. Tell God what you want. There are two blessings in this part of the prayer. First, you give the task of justice to God — a task that God handles a whole lot better than we humans. And second, you get the opportunity to look at what you've asked God to do. Study your words and imagine the consequences.
Consider the piles of dead bodies in The Civil Warand ask yourself: Is this truly what I want? Is this why I am fighting this battle? Is this the highest good for me? Is it the highest good for our children? Is it the highest good for my ex? (Here's a clue: Until you can ask God for your ex's highest good, you're not in sync with true wisdom.)
You will discover over the course of your pilgrimage through the Country of War that your requests to God change. You may start out asking God to reek vengeance on your ex, but by the time wisdom has worked her magic on you for a few months, you will find your requests becoming more internally focused, asking for things like wisdom to choose, guidance for the journey, strength to hold fast, courage to stand up under fire, and even an understanding heart.
As your prayers change, you will change. As you change, your journey will change. Squint into the distance and you will see your path out of War. When you get to the border, don't forget to read one last Psalm" Psalm 150, which ends with a joyful cry, Alleluia!
— — —
Janet Conner, S.E. (Spiritual Explorer), is an expert on the power of practical spirituality to heal your broken heart and transform your world. She is the cartographer of the map of spiritual healing and author of the seven travel guides in the Spiritual Geography series. In addition to divine dialogue, she welcomes human conversation at {email janetconner@tampabay.rr.com}janetconner@tampabay.rr.com{/email}. © copyright 2006 by Janet Conner
ReligionAndSpirituality.com is a big tent for all expressions
of faith and spirituality, neither excluding nor favoring any.
All opinions expressed belong to the writer alone, and are
not necessarily shared by ReligionAndSpirituality.com.