SEPTEMBER: Is Prayer for Entreaty or Eternity?
IS PRAYER FOR
ENTREATY
OR
ETERNITY?
“Prayer is a way offered by the Holy Spirit to reach God. It is not merely a question or an entreaty. It cannot succeed until you realize that it asks for nothing. How else could it serve its purpose? It is impossible to pray for idols and hope to reach God. True prayer must avoid the pitfall of asking to retreat. Ask, rather, to receive what is already given; to accept what is already there.” ACIM S-1.V.1
Hello dear friends,
I hope your summer has been joyfully renewing now that there are many more options for good times together. Currently, our household is experiencing quite a challenge after my husband fractured his ankle as there is now a staph infection requiring home nursing treatment. What do we always do in times like these? We pray.
After many years of working with the principles of ACIM, and personal experience of the joy they bring, I am aware of the purpose of true prayer. “It’s time like these that,” as Winston Churchill said, “try men’s souls.” . . . although the Course does not refer to us as “souls” as we are not separate in any form. . . when our personal script calls for trust in trying times, I am also aware that it is an opportunity to move closer to remembering who I truly am. And . . .I am reminded that the Course says its teachings are simple—but they are not easy. 😊
Prayer, the Course states, is a time of stepping aside, a quiet time of listening and loving. It is a way of remembering our holiness. In our quiet time together, may I share a few thoughts on prayer, and paraphrased thoughts from the Course . . . firstly, recognizing that they are a reinforcement of my own learning, and in the offering that they might expand your learning as well?
One year after the Course was published in 1976, Helen Schucman channeled two pamphlets. Part of one was in response to students’ confusion about prayer. (Pamphlets are found in the back of the newer third edition of the Course, and on line; acim.org)
Our form of prayer reflects where we are in the process of returning back to God. No judgment—it is but a process. As we grow in awareness, we learn to no longer ask for things of form as prayer reaches a formless state. Prayer’s goal then becomes the fusing of our mind into total communication with God. To most of us, this can seem like quite a reach.
The Course tells us that the Son of God who knows who he is does not need to ask for wants. Wants come from a sense of scarcity and lack. They are an attempt to make it all real, and overlook what we have truly already been given. Yet, in our mortal mindedness it seems so natural to ask for what looks like an obvious solution. But this way of thinking is from the same thinking that made the ego’s world. Our goal is to find inner peace and the eternality of love by learning to see with the Holy Spirit from above the battlefield.
In the impactful overview in only eight pages of the pamphlet, the path of prayer is addressed in levels, as in a Ladder of Prayer. While too lengthy to fully address here, let us look at a few of its core concepts.
*At the bottom of the ladder, prayer often need not appeal to God or even a belief in Him. Here, prayer is wanting out of fear and a belief in scarcity and lack.
*A higher form might be to ask God out of need from an underlying sense of sinful identification, asking not only for things here, but gifts, such as honesty or goodness, and for forgiveness which come from many unconscious sources of guilt felt at the root of these prayers of worldly wanting. Yet, without guilt, there is no sense of unworthiness. The sinless have no needs.
*There is also the level known as the oxymoronic concept of “praying for one’s enemies.” While we believe we have enemies, we have limited our prayer to the laws of this world. Since we are all one in Christ, and there is only one of us projecting the dream here, we should seek to pray for ourself that we not imprison the Christ in our brother, thereby losing our remembrance of our own identity. Instead, we ask for our brother that which we would have for ourself.
There are two sections in the pamphlet of prayer which elaborate upon these levels, as well as how to pray with others. (P.III and P.IV). We pray without judgment. If we are the jailer in judgment of another—we are still living in the jailhouse. 😊 Furthermore, if we are the jailer and the prisoner is freed, where has our worth gone? Our only escape is to realize that in no case is guilt real. We all go together.
What I find so comforting at this time in my journey now is to remember that we are told that we have chosen a newborn chance each time we pray. We can learn to overlook our perceptions of problems we think we have, let them go into God’s hands. Both the Bible and the Course say the following:
“You have sought first the Kingdom of Heaven, and all else has indeed been given you.” ACIM S-1.V.3;6
It’s not like we’re looking for any particular outcome, but later can come the echoes . . . the overtones, the harmonics of God’s love. These are secondary and come from God’s love. Prayer is love. You may be inspired (the word comes from in Spirit) as you might get an idea for something you’ve been working on or a solution to a problem you’re having.
“And then I saw an image. It was an image of myself on the mountain and the Word of God was being spoken to me from another mountain top far away. But there is a brief delay as the Word is carried in the echo until it reaches me! That precise moment between the expression of God’s Word and my hearing it is the moment that seems like the dream of time! Yet, it is only a millisecond of eternity while we take in the reality of our grand creation.” TGIC p. 380
I remember, as if it were just this moment, the unspeakable joy I felt, and I wept as I read these words in the Text:
“Listen—perhaps you catch a hint of an ancient state not quite forgotten; dim, perhaps, and yet not altogether unfamiliar, like a son whose name is long forgotten, and the circumstances in which you heard completely unremembered. . . Listen, and see if you remember an ancient song you knew so long ago and held more dear than any melody you taught yourself to cherish since.” T-21.I.6: (1-2)7;5
In whatever form the answer comes, it is given by God and will suit our need as we see it. The answer is merely an echo of the reply of His voice. Prayer, we are told, is the ultimate blessing we received at creation. Prayer is the single voice Creator and creation share; I think of it as the song the Son sings to the Father, and the Father sings back to His Son.
Sending you the blessings of love,
Grace
So, until next time,
When you find yourself staring into the headlights of fear, I hope you can stop . . . allow yourself to laugh at your temporary insanity . . . and say, as I often do, THANK GOD I’M CRAZY! 😊
***** SEE ONLY LOVE FOR THAT IS WHAT YOU ARE *****
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Thank God I’m Crazy includes pictures of places which took place in Grace’s life, as seen in her visions. Grace Avalon, teacher and intuitive counselor, has taught A Course in Miracles for nine years. She gives presentations, seminars and workshops for anyone whose known abuse, thought they were crazy, or wants to live a joyful life.
*** Gary Renard, (International bestselling author of Disappearance of the Universe, and international speaker) says, “Grace Avalon’s courage to share her secret visions that led her out of deep abuse to heal through forgiveness brings a whole new level of understanding to the principles of love found in A Corse in Miracles.”
*** Marianne Williamson, (NY Times bestselling author, teacher, and internationally renowned speaker) , has said, “Grace Avalon inspires all of us to trust the wisdom of our hearts. Here is spirituality in practice.”