May 2: Day 122

STONE FIVE CONTINUED
 
Connect: Not only will I try to discern through mental activity, but I will also discern by connecting with The Divine through prayer, meditation, and contemplation.

Instruction: Open more communication lines.

There is nothing wrong with the old ways. There is nothing wrong with the old forms of communication like letter writing and phone calls. In the spiritual realm, if prayer is the only form of communication someone feels comfortable with, then, by all means, they can remain traditional and stick to just that form. I wouldn’t suggest ruling out other forms of communication simply because they seem new and daunting. My wife swore by paperback books until I gave her one of my older e-book readers. She had shunned the new form in favor of something substantial like real paper and ink, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but now she enjoys the advantages that both have to offer. I fell in love with e-book readers when I discovered the built-in dictionary. Hold your finger on top of a word and a dictionary pops up on the screen. You can’t do that with a paperback — I tried it once. I was so used to having that ability that I instinctively put my finger on a word and waited. I felt foolish and looked around to see if anyone noticed (and now everyone reading this knows).

For years, the basic form of communication I had with The Divine was prayer. There’s nothing wrong with that. If that’s the only form we use, it’s a good and satisfactory one, but it reminds me of paperbacks. The communication is only one way. The author communicates with the reader, but the reader is not able to converse with the author, at least not in the process of reading. Prayer is much like a one-way line of communication. We ask, tell, beseech, and sometimes beg, but the Person on the other end seems silent. It’s not always that way, but my experience has been that most of the time I tell The Divine things He/She already knows and has taken care of. Wouldn’t it be better if we had a time when The Divine spoke to us? Mediation is a wonderful way to listen. We quiet our hearts and minds of the day’s activities and simply wait. Wait for what? Inspiration, stillness, and whispers. The Divine rarely shouts at us. If we want to hear, we must be still and listen. We receive little messages at first, but they are meaningful and speak to our heart. “I am here for you.” “My child, I love you.” “You are safe, you are forgiven.” The messages change from day to day, but the messenger is always present, always waiting, and will honor our seeking if we will but give The Divine a listening ear.

A friend of mine once wrote something that has remained with me through the years. It went something like this: “Prayer is boring. And I often wonder why I do it.” Then he went on to write an entire book on prayer.

Today’s Assignment is to take a moment to think about your prayer life. Do you find it boring? It’s okay if you do. Close, intimate friends who spend hours of each day together can sometimes get bored with one another. By adding meditation to your spiritual practice, you can open your heart and your mind to listening to The Divine and thus initiate a dialog. Not all conversations will be spellbinding, but, with practice, you can learn to sense The Divine Presence and learn new and wonderful things about yourself and your world.