"Real Prayer Is Falling in Love"

Hello there, my friends.

It's been absolutely eons since I last posted here, and so much has happened in the world.

Much of it, to do with Religion, and the insidious ways that these man-made systems convince some of us to look down upon and hate the rest of us.

ISIS, Charlie Hebdo, the Copenhagen shootings, the Coptic Christian martyrs in Libya... the list goes on and on.

All of this to promote a certain group's "Checklist" of prohibitions and rules, devised to clearly separate the righteous from the apostate. And always, always focused on outward shows of piety that many are now adopting in the world, not out of devotion to God, but sheer terror.

How much we need peace in these days.

And there is one, simple act that gives birth to peace: prayer.

Based on an intimate Relationship with the Creator, not out of fear, obligation or tired tradition, but out of deep, personal love.

The heart of the Father is open.
Jesus is the Door and prayer is the Key.

Prayer with such an Intimate God (Who calls Himself "Immanuel, God with us") ceases to be a burden and becomes instead a Living Conversation. One that is so intimate that Jesus told us to always commune with His Father with the door shut, just the two of you in secret, together.

As we prepare for the coming Easter celebration, moving up through forty days to Palm Sunday, I have felt myself attracted to a practice of prayer called "Examen".

Originally a spiritual discipline created by Ignatius of Loyola, a series of new videos created by the movement 24-7 Prayer brings this Relationship-based praying to life.

As Alain Emerson so touchingly observes in the short video segment below, "real prayer is falling in love" with the One Who made the stars, knows your every need and longs desperately for an intimate relationship with you, His Son or Daughter.

I hope you enjoy these reflections and that they bring you Peace in this troubled World.

Little Shop of Horrors

The unthinkable occurred in London this week. A British soldier was attacked by two men in broad daylight who cut his throat using meat cleavers, then filmed themselves to celebrate, bloodied hands and all. A heinous, barbaric act, fueled by pure religious fanaticism. 

Beyond the depravity of the crime, it should remind us again of the danger of all religious systems. The gods created in the image of Man degenerate to terrible idols who demand constant blood sacrifices.

Religion never changes a man's heart:
it only blinds him to his own sinful state, the in-born Virus of the human race.

Religious systems, no matter what their orientation or name,
can never cure us of the Virus.

At their best, they are like funeral parlor make-up artists, only able make a corpse look more presentable (for a time). The decay remains; the stench resurfaces. They cannot bring the dead back to life. 

At its worst, Religion becomes a Little Shop of Horrors.

Instead of creating love, these systems encourage hate. Far from cultivating humility, they stoke the fires of pride, intolerance and self-righteousness. 

The "Shop's" products? Inquisitions. Pogroms. Apartheid. Homofobia. Murder.

Fearful slavery to the checklists of man-made dogmas will never result in true change. No one is made free by Religion, because Religious systems thrive on Show, on outward presentation. Such rules and regulations never produce inner transformation.

Is There A Way Out?

Yes, and it's quite different: the unadulterated message of Jesus.
 (Who, by the way, was killed by Religion.)

He made it quite simple. To save ourselves (from ourselves) we "must be born again".

How? Not by following complex Rules, but by following Him: the "Way, the Truth and the Life".

How urgently we need to heed those words in these confusing times.

It's not about Regulations, it's about a Relationship.

And Restauration. Having laid down His own life for us, He offers each of us a fresh start, with total forgiveness of all we've done wrong. It's a gift, not a system.

Only this New Birth spiritually, on the inside, can save us from ourselves, from the Virus. It sets us free from the Dungeon of Dogma.

Choosing to change course, to follow Him out of love instead of fear, produces real change. As well as love for others.

Starting again,  asking Him to come in and place His own Spirit inside,
opens us up for the greatest Adventure of all:

A relationship with our Father, the Creator. 

................................

PHOTO CREDITS
In order: Google Images / Press.com / JLG on Facebook

Religion Killed the One I Love

Religion killed the one I love,
sent him flying, halfway
'cross the room as his father
reached for his trusted 'Bible Belt'.
"Fags burn in Hell" he bellowed,
blind with fury, as he whipped his
dear son almost to death.

Religion killed the one I love,
threw hot acid on her face,
one day as she returned from school,
without her head covering
because she had been running
through the fields of flowers,
in giddy joy and ecstacy. And forgot.

Religion killed the one I love
as he looked upward from the raucous
flames that swept around his valiant
form, his heart rising in triumph o'er
that auto da fe, some 500 years hence.
Their power fueled by greed;
his riches, faith.

Religion killed the One I love.
I know, I laid my head against
His Breast, as we talked on and on

for hours, late, at 4 am, with the bookers
and the Wall-Street boys, priests and
power-pros.

He'd sigh, His Eyes
always soft, His Voice so tender...

As He told us how the gays,
the gone over-boards, the drunks,
the dumb and the dizzy were already getting in,

In on the next Big Thing...

Life Eternal, Forever Young, botox-free
Where the worthless are wealthy,
the blind are painters...

And where His Hands
still bleed from Love,

Just for proof...

Religion killed the One I love,
strung Him up high, for mocking
eyes and self-righteous stares
of all who hail their Marys
and say their prayers
while turning up the temperature
because the cold turns their words

to ice.

Photo credits: Jeff Mawer