I haven't prayed seriously in a long time.

(Disclaimer:  this is not a thoughtful discussion on religious beliefs.)

I haven't prayed seriously in a long time, but when Deepak Chopra sent me an e-mail with the subject line: Does God Listen to Prayers? I thought, hey, I want to know that.  Usually I approach God like this: I get up from a chair and my knee hurts. I say, Oh, god. That is shorthand for Really?  It has to hurt just to get up? My lazy default expression to many events is, Oh, my god!  Sometimes, if I look around my house and feel reasonably good and all my kids are okay, I say, Thank you, Lord. 

I had very formal and intense religious training at the hands of the Pallotine nuns, the German strain.  I know how to sing the Catholic mass in Latin.  I have no idea why I talk to God in this lackadaisical way. Do I think there is a man/woman sitting on a throne up in the clouds who hears me and looks down and thinks, Huh, look at that.  She thanked me so I will reward her with some peace and happiness?  Yes, that's what I probably think in my crude brain stem. But wait - that can't be, right?  A throne?  Up in the clouds?   That makes no sense even to a seriously religious person.

Ever since Google, Skype, the Cloud, etc., I believe in miracles, I believe even more miracles are in the pipeline. I believe that God is so tired of our uninteresting demands and whining he/she is allowing humans to make their own miracles.  In the near future, we will be able to jiggle our brains and manipulate our abilities and emotions. Unhappiness will be a thing of the past.  We will live in a sappy, giggly uninteresting world.  There will be no more writers because if you are already happy, why write?

Deepak's e-mail said the reason we don't get answers to our prayers is that (I'm paraphrasing here) our intentions are muddled and unfocused.  Unanswered prayers are the product of a mind that is restless, shallow, conflicted, or unable to focus.  Guilty as charged.  But wouldn't you think that God has some sentimental affection for the restless and shallow among us who are unable to focus?  Wouldn't he just say, Oh for goddsakes, that woman is never going to be able to focus, just give her whatever she asks for.  Does she even know what she wants?  Of course she doesn't.  Just give her something she asked for in the past. She might even figure it out. 

God actually did that for me and I did figure it out. All my adult life I had yearned for a newspaper column where I could express all my ideas and throw them out to the world and utilize the tyranny of my discontinuous mind. * I was certain that I had some good ideas.  From time to time I published op-ed pieces in The New York Times and Newsday, but I yearned for a regular gig.  Once Mort Persky, the editor of SHE, a sister publication to Playboy, asked me to write a column on sex.  “Mort, I screamed, I was raised in a convent boarding school.  We put on our clothes under our nightgowns.  I can’t even type the word “sex” without looking around for Sister Francisca to come and slap me.”  “That’s exactly why I asked you,” he said.  Sone  It was only recently that I figured out that this blog was the answer to my prayers.  I get to talk about anything and it's a regular gig.

*Richard Dawkins’ essay in The New Statesman, Escaping the Tyranny of the Discontinuous Mind is about something serious but applies to me in a silly way.

I never thought the Kardashians would show me the way

I want to believe in God. Who wouldn’t? For one thing it makes death more attractive because you think well, at least God’s behind it and he knows what he/she is doing. With death you have no assurance that anyone is in charge. Belief in God would make life so much easier. When trouble came along you could just turn it over to you know who. There's a wonderful package that comes with belief in God. I’ve mentioned before that one of my favorite bible passages resides in St. Paul’s letters: Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. This remarkable premise implies a reliable order and someone had to put that order in place and that someone would be God.
That passage is several steps above plain old “magical thinking” because, hey it was filtered through a Saint who was transformed in a flash of understanding and then passed along some astounding good news. “Whaaat? R U kidding me? You mean if I have faith - whatever that is - I can have a whole lot of money and good sinuses and my deviated septum would freaking heal itself and let me breathe right for once?”

Whenever any public figure I admire talks comfortably about God, I get excited. Oh, wow, if he/she believes in God, then it must be true. Good! I’m not standing in this “vale of tears” ( Psalm 84) all by my lonesome. Right beside me, is G O D. Despite my umpteen years with the nuns (forgive me Mother Di Pazzi) and the Catholic Church I find it hard to think of God as “a ready help in trouble” another fantastic Biblical promise. Imagine having someone who is all knowing, all powerful, all loving as “a ready help in trouble?” Really? You mean when I can’t turn off the hose and water is cascading in places where there shouldn’t be any water, I have a Master Plumber at the ready? That’s what it says in Psalms 46:1,2. God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea.

Just in case we missed all the other road signs, there's a very simple extra promise and it’s not from Wayne Dyer during pledge drive on Channel 13 but from Mark 11:24. Mark as in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Whatsoever ye desire, believe that you have it and you will have it? “Whaaaat? R U kidding me?” No, this is serious. This is the Bible speaking, not some well-marketed how-to book.

What is even more fabulous, everybody can have all of these promises without working hard or doing anything special. It says so, right in (Matthew 6:28,29). Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. So let me get this straight: all you have to do is sit on the couch and do nothing but have faith. Yup.

But how do you have faith? Ay there’s the rub (Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet). I think that journey is different for everyone but one of the key ingredients is to pay attention to the way things go. Train yourself to be present and you will start to see reliable sequence in place of randomness. Instead of seeing the universe as adversarial and nitpicking, decide it is a benevolent system that wants to see you succeed. Actively look for and recognize serendipitous help in small things and then move on to bigger things. Expect to be indulged. Expect to be loved. Expect to find easy solutions to your problems. Remember it says, Whatsoever ye desire believe that you have it and you will have it. Look at those crazy Kardashians. They just roll along getting things because they think they should. I never thought I’d look to the Kardashians to show me the way, but darn it they know how to get a lot of good stuff without doing much.

Good luck with this if you are in the same boat and please share your progress. If you are way ahead of me, share that, too.