Men call the Father the First Cause. Yes! See Him as the First Cause of every warm ray, every colour in the sunset, every gleam on the water, every beautiful flower, every planned pleasure. -- "God Calling," May 2 [My addition: Also, see Him in every not wonderful thing.]
....[we] need to embrace our tears as well as our triumphs. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," May 1, 2020
I wonder if Meister Eckhart's, if the only prayer you ever pray is thank You, that will suffice, isn't the missing link in religious study.
It seems the religious ones who went before me either never heard of that or just didn't agree with it. More likely, if they heard of it, they figured it needed improving...by that, I mean adding to which invariably changed it beyond recognition.
In their desire to believe in a Perfect Power, our religious forebears seemed unable to accept anything but bounty and beauty unending, health and wealth forevermore. Anything less was proof of our bad behavior for which we needed to be punished. Of course, that may only be my jaundiced opinion.
But there's my gold! Without such a cynical outlook, in my hour of darkness, in my time of need, I doubt I would have sought something other than what I had received in my early years...religion by rote. The message I got being, You wouldn't be feeling so bad if you weren't so bad...suffer for your sins.
Certainly, knowing naught of spiritual as opposed to religious, it is doubtful I would have independently sought spiritual growth. I for sure wasn't praying thank You at the time. Face it, with not a cogent hope, I wasn't praying at all. I was suffering...ah, there it is. God's gift to me: I was suffering which is how the God of my understanding found me.
That was the beginning of my learning over time, a lot of time, the truth that Eckhart spoke: If the only prayer you ever pray is thank You, that will suffice. There are no qualifiers.
Thank you.
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