Tuesday, April 17, 2007 at 12:12am
Praying with a pen
Column: Writing Down Your Soul
Prayer is good. Most people agree on that. Furthermore, prayer works. Maybe not all the time, and maybe not for everyone, but, in general, most of us believe that at one point or another prayer has made a difference in our lives. But there's something odd and interesting beneath all this consensus.
If 10 people were plucked arbitrarily off the street in an American city and asked if prayer is good, nine, or perhaps all 10, would say yes. But ask those same 10 to describe prayer, and suddenly things begin to diverge — wildly. One might say prayer is repetition of traditions handed down for generations. One might say prayer is what happens in a religious building during religious ceremonies. Another might say it is making requests to a distant God. Another, that it's a silent connection with the divine in the heart. Still another might say prayer is meditation. Another, that prayer is begging God to help others. And so on, until we heard 10 descriptions of the same thing — prayer — and those descriptions would have little, if anything, in common with one another. Yet each individual would be clear in his or her mind that what they had described is not just "a" definition of prayer, but "the" definition of prayer.
Interesting. A bit confusing, but interesting. And in this little sample, we didn't even step outside our culture. What if we also asked an Inuit fisherman, or a Native American tribal leader, or a Peruvian shaman, or a Swahili woman? What if we asked an Australian aborigine or a New Zealand Maori? What if we asked people from every continent and every spiritual tradition? How many different versions of prayer would there be? Suddenly there wouldn't be 10 or even 100, there would be thousands and thousands of iterations on this one little powerful word: prayer.
And if that weren't enough of a crazy quilt, I come along and bollix up the works with yet another way to pray — a way that unleashes bucketloads of grace: praying with a pen. Not too many of our sample of 10 Americans would have described prayer as something you do in writing.
It isn't that no one knows about it. Many spiritual teachers, such as Deepak Chopra and Wayne Dyer, have spoken about the power of writing and journaling to connect with the divine. Every time someone mentions the power of the Law of Attraction as taught in "The Secret," whether it's Jack Canfield or someone telling their personal story to Oprah, they start by saying, "I wrote it down in my journal." In the book "The Artist's Way," Julia Cameron speaks eloquently about the conduit between heaven and the pen: "Anyone who faithfully writes morning pages will be led to a connection with a source of wisdom within."
In a current New York Times best-seller, "Eat, Pray, Love," Elizabeth Gilbert ends her book with a soul-stirring description of the power of her written communication with spirit: "'I love you, I will never leave you, I will always take care of you.' Those were the first words I ever wrote in that private notebook of mine, which I would carry with me from that moment forth, turning back to it many times over the next two years, always asking for help — and always finding it, even when I was most deadly sad or afraid. And that notebook, steeped through with that promise of love, was quite simply the only reason I survived the next years of my life."
When I read that paragraph, I yelped in recognition. "Yes! Yes!" Writing with God rouses your soul, changes your life, heals your heart and shifts the entire world around you. That's what I mean by "bucketloads of grace."
And it's simple. Note, I didn't say easy; I said simple. You need just six things. And it won't cost much. Your total investment could be as little as a few dollars. Your total return, however, could be priceless.
Begin where it always begins — with intention. To begin your direct access to Spirit, you have only to intend to connect. Hold the thought, feel the desire in your heart and you have already completed the first step. The door is open.
Now, stop. That's it. Just stop. Make the decision to get off the busy, go-go, do-do train for 10 minutes. Ten minutes today and 10 minutes tomorrow. Ten minutes every day. Give yourself the peace of stepping off the train to have a conversation with God. Don't worry that the train will speed on ahead without you. Not only will you have no problem getting back on, but you'll reboard with some new answers, some new direction, some new feelings of hope, and maybe even joy.
So far you haven't spent any money. But the next thing you need is something to write on, so it's time to pick up a journal, or a stray legal pad floating around the house, or just some loose paper. And a pen. Your pen can run the gamut from a fancy fountain pen to the throwaway ballpoint your bank gave out last winter.
You're practically ready to start praying. All you need now is a place to write. A little privacy would be good, and a bit of quiet. But a coffee shop will do, and so will the back seat of your van. When you have the time, you can create a beautiful sacred space for your prayer practice, but for now, just plop yourself down where you are and start to write.
There's just one other consideration before you begin: security for your prayer books. Just as you would not give another person a word-by-word transcription of your silent prayers, you do not want anyone to read a transcript of your written prayers. So, plan a place to keep your prayer notebook private.
Now, you have everything you need to enter into dialogue with the divine. (See? I told you it was cheap and simple to set up.) So, what do you want to talk about? You've got the intention to connect, you've stopped for a few moments to pray, and you're sitting somewhere quiet, holding a pad and pen in your lap. Now, what are you going to write? What's your first sentence? How do you know what to say? Or how to say it?
The answer is in your pocket.
(Next week: What's in your pockets?)
— — —
Janet Conner, S.E. (Spiritual Explorer), is the author of the Spiritual Geography series and is currently writing a book on the power of prayer writing to rouse your soul and change your life. The Spiritual Geography books are available through Amazon or Spiritual Geography. Reach Janet at {email janetconner@tampabay.rr.com}janetconner@tampabay.rr.com{/email}.© copyright 2007 by Janet Conner
If 10 people were plucked arbitrarily off the street in an American city and asked if prayer is good, nine, or perhaps all 10, would say yes. But ask those same 10 to describe prayer, and suddenly things begin to diverge — wildly. One might say prayer is repetition of traditions handed down for generations. One might say prayer is what happens in a religious building during religious ceremonies. Another might say it is making requests to a distant God. Another, that it's a silent connection with the divine in the heart. Still another might say prayer is meditation. Another, that prayer is begging God to help others. And so on, until we heard 10 descriptions of the same thing — prayer — and those descriptions would have little, if anything, in common with one another. Yet each individual would be clear in his or her mind that what they had described is not just "a" definition of prayer, but "the" definition of prayer.
Interesting. A bit confusing, but interesting. And in this little sample, we didn't even step outside our culture. What if we also asked an Inuit fisherman, or a Native American tribal leader, or a Peruvian shaman, or a Swahili woman? What if we asked an Australian aborigine or a New Zealand Maori? What if we asked people from every continent and every spiritual tradition? How many different versions of prayer would there be? Suddenly there wouldn't be 10 or even 100, there would be thousands and thousands of iterations on this one little powerful word: prayer.
And if that weren't enough of a crazy quilt, I come along and bollix up the works with yet another way to pray — a way that unleashes bucketloads of grace: praying with a pen. Not too many of our sample of 10 Americans would have described prayer as something you do in writing.
It isn't that no one knows about it. Many spiritual teachers, such as Deepak Chopra and Wayne Dyer, have spoken about the power of writing and journaling to connect with the divine. Every time someone mentions the power of the Law of Attraction as taught in "The Secret," whether it's Jack Canfield or someone telling their personal story to Oprah, they start by saying, "I wrote it down in my journal." In the book "The Artist's Way," Julia Cameron speaks eloquently about the conduit between heaven and the pen: "Anyone who faithfully writes morning pages will be led to a connection with a source of wisdom within."
In a current New York Times best-seller, "Eat, Pray, Love," Elizabeth Gilbert ends her book with a soul-stirring description of the power of her written communication with spirit: "'I love you, I will never leave you, I will always take care of you.' Those were the first words I ever wrote in that private notebook of mine, which I would carry with me from that moment forth, turning back to it many times over the next two years, always asking for help — and always finding it, even when I was most deadly sad or afraid. And that notebook, steeped through with that promise of love, was quite simply the only reason I survived the next years of my life."
When I read that paragraph, I yelped in recognition. "Yes! Yes!" Writing with God rouses your soul, changes your life, heals your heart and shifts the entire world around you. That's what I mean by "bucketloads of grace."
And it's simple. Note, I didn't say easy; I said simple. You need just six things. And it won't cost much. Your total investment could be as little as a few dollars. Your total return, however, could be priceless.
Begin where it always begins — with intention. To begin your direct access to Spirit, you have only to intend to connect. Hold the thought, feel the desire in your heart and you have already completed the first step. The door is open.
Now, stop. That's it. Just stop. Make the decision to get off the busy, go-go, do-do train for 10 minutes. Ten minutes today and 10 minutes tomorrow. Ten minutes every day. Give yourself the peace of stepping off the train to have a conversation with God. Don't worry that the train will speed on ahead without you. Not only will you have no problem getting back on, but you'll reboard with some new answers, some new direction, some new feelings of hope, and maybe even joy.
So far you haven't spent any money. But the next thing you need is something to write on, so it's time to pick up a journal, or a stray legal pad floating around the house, or just some loose paper. And a pen. Your pen can run the gamut from a fancy fountain pen to the throwaway ballpoint your bank gave out last winter.
You're practically ready to start praying. All you need now is a place to write. A little privacy would be good, and a bit of quiet. But a coffee shop will do, and so will the back seat of your van. When you have the time, you can create a beautiful sacred space for your prayer practice, but for now, just plop yourself down where you are and start to write.
There's just one other consideration before you begin: security for your prayer books. Just as you would not give another person a word-by-word transcription of your silent prayers, you do not want anyone to read a transcript of your written prayers. So, plan a place to keep your prayer notebook private.
Now, you have everything you need to enter into dialogue with the divine. (See? I told you it was cheap and simple to set up.) So, what do you want to talk about? You've got the intention to connect, you've stopped for a few moments to pray, and you're sitting somewhere quiet, holding a pad and pen in your lap. Now, what are you going to write? What's your first sentence? How do you know what to say? Or how to say it?
The answer is in your pocket.
(Next week: What's in your pockets?)
— — —
Janet Conner, S.E. (Spiritual Explorer), is the author of the Spiritual Geography series and is currently writing a book on the power of prayer writing to rouse your soul and change your life. The Spiritual Geography books are available through Amazon or Spiritual Geography. Reach Janet at {email janetconner@tampabay.rr.com}janetconner@tampabay.rr.com{/email}.© copyright 2007 by Janet Conner