Your thoughts on prayer

Hey Stephanie, If you cant be nice to people and help them wherever possible, you are a very sorry person. I cant do much to help, but whatever I can do, I will.

There is a book that I read once, "Man whence how and whither" by Bessant and Leadbitter,hope I spelled the names correct. For non believers, it is a good read. It explained a lot to me that the Bible dont. And no, it dont say God was a spaceman. Lol

Here's a lovely little prayer I came across today - it's not about religion and very generic.  But it's quite lovely and I think quite appropriate to this website:

Prayer of Thanksgiving

O God, we thank you for this earth, our home, for the wide sky and the blessed sun, for the salt sea and the running water, for the everlasting hills and the never resting winds, for trees and the common grass underfoot.  We thank you for our senses by which we hear the songs of birds, and see the spendor of the summer fields, and taste of the autumn fruits, and rejoice in the feel of snow, and smell the breath of the spring.  Grant us a heart wide open to all this beauty; and save our souls from being so blind that we pass unseeing when even the common thornbush is aflame with your glory, O God our creator, who lives and reigns for ever and ever.  Amen.

Walter Rauschenbusch, in Living God's Justice

I am not either Lyn but on second thoughts, I do pray sometimes, I just don't know to who.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_cLHHhZMu0

Maybe the Wolf spirit in the sky ???

 I think I've covered religion and "God" as an genealogist/historian and as an man of the cloth and servant in an past life, as an preacher, and also as an adivid "nature lover" in ways, there are myrad ways in my connection to the "Man upstairs"...my most profound was my near-death expereince, as well as several exceptional other episodes in my life..the purpose of prayer is one....without prayer..."God doesn't exist"..before something can "exist" it has to be recognized. That's what prayer does, it "recoginizes" the divine element...when you say those little words of "Our father who art in heaven" your saying that there IS an "creator" energy or divine "spark" in the universe.. that is indeed of an "spirit" that is eternal. Prayer is definately an one on one encounter with expressions from the heart. I have always said that God made the church for his people, and the church is nothing without it's God...or it's people. It's only an building.  

 Hi Stephanie, you mentioned the Methodist...How well you know your English History?...remember the "War of Roses"? Amoung my husband's Lawson family it is said that they stand before "God" and answer to no one but "God"... though answer often on "bended" knee they do. From The  Lawson Letters, International "quote"...at the Library Archives of Washington D. C.  (family geneaology) They have on their coat of arms three small birds. There is an man that that devoted his life to collecting and dong the History on the early formation of the churches and different religions. His last name is "Sweet"and he has an book called "The Methodist", it was written many years ago. In it there was of Mason County, Kentucky (USA) in 1797 a Rev, Benjamin Lakins (Larkins in some records) whom was about to hand over his Methodist circuit-rider post to one Rev. Jereimiah Lawson...and so it was he was in quite a bit anguish as to if he was doing the right thing. Well, he says that he sat down to ponder a bit about it with the Lord, when an small red bird came down to him on the ground and they exchanged looking each over a bit, which he thought a bit odd in ways, and he had that night an terrible dream of people trying to escape from something, as if they were in an war, and it woke him up. He re-accounts a bit of what he dreamed. I know that niether one of them most likely "knew" that they were an old "English" lineage of cousins, and what he dreamed most likely was the escape and scattering of the family as cousins back then from the "War of Roses" by the little bird that paid him that visit. In short, to me "God" was uniting them again..through his "calling" of them as his servants...and giving them both protection under him. The Reverand Lakins goes on in his letter from his diary... in this book, feeling better later on for doing this and seeks his ministrial services in another way...but it's quite interesting to read, and you have to know these families and their history to understand what is going on.They were both ordained "Methodist" preachers. God works in mysterious ways at times unkown to us ...or seemingly so at times.     

Ruth, whether I believe in God or not, I like that poem. I think everybody who submits and or just looks at the photos on here has been granted the heart as requested in the poem, come prayer. Thank you.

Maybe just another name for God, Wolf.