Good morning…
She said to me honestly, “With all of the division in our world, religiously and politically, I really am not sure how to pray.”
Her confusion made me think of Sue Monk Kidd’s comment: “To believe you can find your way ‘home’ through the crises and the sufferings that fall upon you – and believe it even in the midnight of your struggle – requires a transfigured vision. It requires faith.”
Monk Kidd continues: “Teihard de Chardin, Jesuit priest, paleontologist, and philosopher, asked for such faith when he prayed, “In all those dark moments, O God, grant that I may understand that it is you who are painfully parting the fibers of my being in order to penetrate to the very marrow of my substance…” That deep and beautiful prayer can help us learn to trust that inside us is a loving, divine power that heals and guides.”
She goes on to add: “I find something breathtakingly hallowed about this truth: that in the midst of pain and crisis God is drawing us to wholeness.” (93)
After sitting with my friend, together, in stilled confusion, I was drawn to open my Bible, to read aloud the instruction of Jesus.
“Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father, who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread'” (Matthew 6:9-11, AMP).
Amid the turmoil of crisis and sufferings, God painfully parts the fibers of our being to reveal the marrow of our substance. Experientially we discover: God is there. Jesus’ teachings are there. The promised Holy Spirit is there, powerfully healing and guiding. In prayerful reverence we seek the will of our Father in heaven, day after day. Feeding on intimate oneness with our Creator, digesting each bite of this daily bread, we are strengthened to experience God’s kingdom gradually growing more whole, abundant on earth as it is in heaven.
…Sue…
