I am deeply troubled by the violence that our country has seen in the past 7 days.  My heart goes out to all those who are mourning the sudden, tragic loss of a friend, a loved one, a daughter, a mother, a son, a father, an uncle this morning.  My heart weighs heavy thinking of all those innocent victims who have lost their lives to the erupting hatred, anger, bigotry and prejudice of the perpetrators of such vile evil whose actions were no doubt fed an fueled by the infectious polarity and polemic impacting the lives of each and every citizen within the United States.  An infection so severe that no cure, no remedy, no healing seems in site.  

We are no longer a democratic republic fueled by the ideals that influenced our founders, we have become a politicratic republic, no longer seeking the common good of all, but the common good only of those who think like me and vote like me and believe like me.

The tipping point of my sorrow and empathy this morning comes by all the posts and messages that prayer is useless, that prayer is profane, that “thoughts and prayers” are the problem.

If prayer is profane to you.  Then feel free to unfriend me.  If prayer is folly to you, then you don’t know me that well.  If prayer is pointless in your eyes and inciting anger and reaction and activism is the solution, then God be with you as you proceed along your reactionary way.

If prayer is profane, I am not perfect, I am not a saint, but I AM ONE OF THE MOST PROFANE PEOPLE YOU HAVE AS A FB friend.  I AM PRAYERFULLY PROFANE AND PROUD.

I don’t care if you are Hindu, Muslim, Wiccan, Christian, Jewish, Pagan, Aboriginal, Native American, Root worker in your worship.  Prayer in any of these traditions is not so much simply the utterance of words with the wishful thinking that an all powerful being will hear them and grant the fruition of your words like some magical genie or fairy godmother granting your wishes and that’s all you have to do with no actions.  

Prayer, to me, is not so much wishful thinking and washing my hands of the responsibility of doing anything more.  Prayer is integral to me because in prayer, I take pause from the distractions of this world.  I enter the silence carrying with me those things that trouble me most, that incite such reaction within me most and I try my best to connect with source, with God, the Divine.  I open my heart and take those thoughts and prayers of the loved one who lost a child to suicide, the friend who lost their mother to cancer, the troubling stirrings that violence such as the mass shootings that occurred over this past week and I hold that in my hand and present it to God and we rest there with that trouble, that sorrow, that loss, that effect of evil in the world.  We rest with it and I ask to be transformed within my soul, within my thoughts, within my words, within my acts — transformed by the knowledge and experience of such evil.  I humbly seek to be transformed by God and humbly ask for direction on how to respond — not react — to events such as these so as to be an agent of that transforming Grace within the cosmos and not an agent of reaction, of deception, of incitement, of volatile energy.

If by turning within and seeking grounding with Source and opening my heart and soul and self up to transformation by Source so as to be able to respond in this world to the sorrows and tragedies and violence we become aware of, experience or witness — you call this prayer and you feel that prayer is folly and profane.  I AM PROFANE.

I do not know why such violence has to happen.  I don’t think God allows it to happen for a reason.  I don’t know why anyone can become so fueled by anger, bigotry, or hatred to act like that.  I only know that if i don’t pray in this fashion, the light of hope, of love, of Grace will be quenched in my life and the world I live.

If prayer is profane, darkness wins.  If prayer is profane, evil wins.  If prayer is profane, all those lives so tragically lost in these tragedies is in vain.  If prayer is profane, good does not win, only darkness, hatred, vengeance, evil, anger wins.

Light always conquers darkness.  In my cosmology, good has to win so I turn to prayer and will continue to proudly do so.