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Tricky Prayers Thursday, Jun. 12, 2003 - 12:05 am ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In today's Free Will Astrology Newsletter, there was this completely wonderful article, which I feel I must include here even though it's fairly long. But read it! Really! It's amazing! Tricky Prayers By Anne Herbert There's a story about training dolphins in Gregory Bateson's "Steps to An Ecology of the Mind." The dolphin trainers had a rhythm of teaching dolphins tricks, and dolphins picked up on them at a fairly predictable pace. It took a few days to a week for a dolphin to get a new trick down. Then the dolphin trainers thought of trying to train a dolphin to do something the dolphin had never done before. Not a specific new trick, but anything the dolphin had not previously done. It took a while to communicate that idea, but once it got through, the dolphin whooshed out of the water and did 15 new tricks in a row. Like, "Oh, you finally asked me something interesting." All of which brings up the question, "Is God as smart as a dolphin?" I come up with tricks I want God to do. I ask for local tricks like, "My toe hurts. Fix it." Or "My heart hurts. Fix the situation I think is causing the pain, now." I ask for larger tricks: "Nuclear waste hurts. Fix it." But I'm sure God is as smart as a dolphin. And the stuff I can think of asking God to do isn't close to being the coolest stuff God can do. So it might be more useful for me to get out of the way and make it easier for God to generate God-style tricks, instead of my keeping up this patter of tiny me-style suggestions. I don't know what God's living situation is, but it seems to be different than mine. When it rains, God doesn't get wet in the same way I do. This could be because God is outside of the rain, in some Godish yonder. Or it could be because God is the rain and God is the sidewalk that the rain splashes on and the iridescent oil spot gleaming in the street and you and me and also worms--all God, all the time, maybe. Wherever God is, God seems to be in a different scene than the specifically focused wandering-among-physical-stuff scene that I'm in and therefore has little or no occasion to say, "I wish I'd brought my umbrella this morning." It could be that to pull off some of the really cool God tricks, God needs someone here inside this physical-spiritual stew that humans splash about in. God might now and then need someone who is here willing and ready to let a good God trick slide by. There might be some way we can be a door if we are willing to stop being a suggestion box. A water drop in the ocean does not give a dolphin a list of "things that are bugging me that I want you to fix." But a water drop might say to a dolphin "You go, girl," as the dolphin twists a new gorgeous way from water to air and back again. So instead of whining to God both locally and globally about what I want done, I might say something like, "Listen, God, if there's something you want to pull off that involves the physical set-up I'm in, and I could help, go for me." Ready for pratfalls, ready for glory to shine through me without me ever knowing it, ready to see a flash of grey grace skim by me on the way to remaking the sky as I say to God, "You go, girl."
+ Anne Herbert's book *Random Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty* is available here.
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Crummy - Monday, Jul. 12, 2004 Can't Decide - Monday, Jun. 07, 2004 Letting Go - Friday, Jun. 04, 2004 Google 5 - Tuesday, May. 18, 2004 Before Tattoo - Wednesday, May. 12, 2004 older entries random entry profile * sign my guestbook* For a more complete view of my life, read these: live journal ~ gratitude journal DiaryLand |