Another thing I’m noticing about spiritual direction is that it seems quite concerned to teach people how to pray. There are dozens of methods of prayer, so generalizing here is dangerous. But most of it seems to be some form of begging or pining. I don’t see how teaching people how to do that is helpful.
Why should prayer be the end-all-be-all of spirituality? I say that as a UU, but surely there are other ways to do spirituality even in Christian circles. Myself, I haven’t “prayed” in years, but I don’t think that makes me unspiritual. In fact, I think it’s made me the opposite.
Praying to God can be either like being in the middle of the street with a large truck coming directly at you and praying for God to save you, vs. as quickly as possible going away from the spot x you are standing on/situation you are being in, and as directly as you can totally coming towards a hopefully better place y to ultimately be saved. Afterwhich, and in either case, you are likely to say, “Thank God!” for having safely emerged from that emergency situation. The latter method of salvation is obviously the better kind of prayer, although adding the first kind to it probably can’t hurt, and does give one the opportunity to have a kind of spiritual closure if he or she has the desire and’or need to believe in a personal external God as compared with a God within ourselves.
I release, chutney, that you haven’t prayed in a while, at least not in the traditional sense. I have prayed over an issue lately and – maybe my understanding of prayer is different than others – but I actually do feel as though I received an answer. Like – I ask ed “What should I do?â€? and I really felt like I talked with God and understood what I should do. OK. So, you can all start telling me I’m insane now.
My point is – why not pray about it?
Hey, if you can pray, you should pray. More power to you.
But I can’t anymore. Chalk it up to something like not being on speaking terms anymore. Or an old friend who knows what you’re thinking even when you don’t say anything.
So no judgments about people who pray. I just don’t want to be made to feel that I have to pray to be spiritual, that’s all.