Art of Loving

Image by EraPhernalia Vintage . . . (playin’ hook-y ;o) via Flickr

“Well, in A Course in Miracles, it says that “Prayer is the medium
of miracles, and the altar is not external; the altar is in our
mind. And what we put on the altar is then altered.”

So when you put a relationship on the altar, when you say “I give
this relationship to God,” any situation or relationship that you
place in the hands of God, that’s the same thing as saying, “I
surrender my perceptions about this person, and I surrender my
perceptions about myself, and I’m willing to have the Spirit of God
enter into me at the deepest level and breakthrough even these
entrenched thought patterns, emotional habits that I’ve been
carrying around since childhood, that make me keep running the same
game over and over again. I am willing.”

I am willing to see this differently. So my answer is prayer…

“Dear God…Please help.”

And as we continue to surrender the relationship to God, to
surrender the relationship, to say, “May this relationship be
lifted to the highest level of divine right order; may it be lifted
from the path, may it be lifted from the confines, the limitations,
the walls, the separation of the past, the concept of being reborn.”

A Course of Miracles says, “You are reborn in any moment when you
do not take the past with you.” That’s what we really need and want
in relationships, even in long-term relationships. “May it begin
again today. May he feel in my presence that he’s not bound by who
he was yesterday. I’m not looking at him with this kind of like,
‘Well, I know how you acted yesterday.’

May the other person feel new and able to start over again in my
presence today. And may I be someone new.” That’s really what
couples want to give each other, that you get to be today who you
were not yesterday.

“I am so turned on by the fact that you grow and change. I am not
sitting here monitoring, because I know what you did Thursday.”
Right? And that’s what the prayer is.

So my answer is prayer; that we constantly give it up, and the
realization that this world is dominated by fearful thoughts,
dominated by ego thoughts.

We have an ego that would always have us reaching for the thought,
the attitude, the behavior, which while we’re doing it feels like
love or feels like taking care of ourselves, but which we would
then see in retrospect, with self-sabotaging on the most
fundamental level.

And you pray, “May my thoughts be uplifted today. Post angels
around my head.” Angels are the thoughts of God. So to say, “Post
angels around my head today, dear God,” what that means is “My ego
will come up with ‘He’s not enough, he did this wrong, he should’ve
given me that, I’m in a bad mood, he needs to hear about it.'”

Post angels around my head means “Dear God, remind me he’s
beautiful. How grateful I am that he is here, that I haven’t done
my work today making his life happier, that my neurotic stuff from
the past will only poison the future if I allow it into the
present.” This is this spiritual work. And so, my answer is pretty
much pray without ceasing.” Arielle Ford & Claire Zammit

“Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one’s weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.” ~Mahatma Gandhi

“Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.” ~St Francis

“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.” ~Soren Kierkegaard

“If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.” Meister Eckhart

Related articles

• Prayer miracle to save my relationship.. (prayersonline.net)
• Pray without ceasing (waltbrite.wordpress.com)
• Prayer (celiaelaine.wordpress.com)
• Pray Without Ceasing (connexionsblogsite.wordpress.com)
• Pray Without Ceasing (gettingthere26.wordpress.com)
• A New Way of Praying (brendamarroyauthor.com)
• 7 Thoughts on Prayer (interruptingthesilence.com)
• you still down for me? (hopedeal.wordpress.com)
• Why I keep on praying (phindelamuses.wordpress.com)
• Sermon Notes: Robert’s Rules For Prayer (faithinspires.wordpress.com)