Tag: loss

Don’t Pray

Continuing the theme of “how we deal with loss” that I started in my last post – especially the notion of trusting G-d to be G-d, and and being faithful enough to focus wholly and completely on doing my work as a human being.

When I see loss and pain around me, what if I don’t “pray” in the traditional sense? What if I don’t bow my head and ask G-d to fix everything and mend every pain? Does G-d need my instruction on how Creation needs to be run?

Prayer in the traditional sense here implies two entities – one entity petitioning a different higher entity. Yet, there is great tradition within most faith teaching, (certainly within my own), instructing us to live as or strive toward “oneness and unity” with G-d.

How does that change the nature of prayer? What if prayer becomes an act of connection with that oneness, rather than an act of petition to a separate entity?

In making this connection, we become a conduit for the energy and goodness and healing that is divine to move through us and out into the world around us.

There’s a difference, isn’t there? On the one hand I’m asking for someone or something else to do something, and on the other hand I’m seeking the strength, the guidance, and the will to be an agent of change myself – to be a force of human kindness and goodness.

When there’s loss and suffering around us, perhaps the best thing we can do is to stop praying for G-d to do something, and start connecting with G-d for the strength, wisdom, and will to be a force of pure and simple kindness to those around us who are suffering.

 

The Heresy of Human Kindness

I corresponded with someone recently who lost everything in the flooding that so many folks are experiencing in the Mississippi River Valley and other places out east. Their spirit of acceptance and forward movement impressed me, and got me thinking quite a bit about “loss”. Then yesterday evening, my son and I spent some time in the garden of a friend and customer who had just lost her husband. Afterwards my son mentioned that he really hadn’t spent much time around “loss” before, and that he was learning more about how to deal with those around him when they experience loss.

How do we deal with loss that those around us experience? What are we called to do when our neighbor feels the crush of loss?

I like words I wrote down once, attributed to the late Baal Shem Tov. Keep in mind that I wrote this down after hearing it second hand, so I’ve probably messed something up…

In responding to a discussion of “heresy”, he said:

“Because when you see a person suffering, you don’t say, ‘G-d runs the universe. G-d will take care. G-d knows what is best.’ You do everything in your power to relieve that suffering as though there is no G-d. You become a heretic in G-d’s name.”

Fitting wisdom in a world where too many use religion to wrap a veil around their essential humanity. Religion can too easily become and insulating cover that keeps us from feeling the pain of those around us, or from reaching out with pure acts of human kindness and caring.

If I believe that G-d is in everything around me, and that He plays a part in the flight of every sparrow, then do I trust Him enough to leave G-d’s work to G-d? Am I faithful enough to focus wholly and completely on doing my work as a human being? Can I give all of me to feeling the loss my neighbor feels, and offering the help I can offer, or will I hide behind pious grumblings of “god’s will”?