Ancestors Prayer Quotes

HELPED are those who are content to be themselves; they will never lack mystery in their lives and the joys of self-discovery will be constant. HELPED are those who love the entire cosmos rather than their own tiny country, city, or farm, for to them will be shown the unbroken web of life and the meaning of infinity. HELPED are those who live in quietness, knowing neither brand name nor fad; they shall live every day as if in eternity, and each moment shall be as full as it is long. HELPED are those who love others unsplit off from their faults; to them will be given clarity of vision. HELPED are those who create anything at all, for they shall relive the thrill of their own conception, and realize an partnership in the creation of the Universe that keeps them responsible and cheerful. HELPED are those who love the Earth, their mother, and who willingly suffer that she may not die; in their grief over her pain they will weep rivers of blood, and in their joy in her lively response to love, they will converse with the trees. HELPED are those whose ever act is a prayer for harmony in the Universe, for they are the restorers of balance to our planet. To them will be given the insight that every good act done anywhere in the cosmos welcomes the life of an animal or a child. HELPED are those who risk themselves for others' sakes; to them will be given increasing opportunities for ever greater risks. Theirs will be a vision of the word in which no one's gift is despised or lost. HELPED are those who strive to give up their anger; their reward will be that in any confrontation their first thoughts will never be of violence or of war. HELPED are those whose every act is a prayer for peace; on them depends the future of the world. HELPED are those who forgive; their reward shall be forgiveness of every evil done to them. It will be in their power, therefore, to envision the new Earth. HELPED are those who are shown the existence of the Creator's magic in the Universe; they shall experience delight and astonishment without ceasing. HELPED are those who laugh with a pure heart; theirs will be the company of the jolly righteous. HELPED are those who love all the colors of all the human beings, as they love all the colors of the animals and plants; none of their children, nor any of their ancestors, nor any parts of themselves, shall be hidden from them. HELPED are those who love the lesbian, the gay, and the straight, as they love the sun, the moon, and the stars. None of their children, nor any of their ancestors, nor any parts of themselves, shall be hidden from them. HELPED are those who love the broken and the whole; none of their children, nor any of their ancestors, nor any parts of themselves, shall be hidden from them. HELPED are those who do not join mobs; theirs shall be the understanding that to attack in anger is to murder in confusion. HELPED are those who find the courage to do at least one small thing each day to help the existence of another--plant, animal, river, or human being. They shall be joined by a multitude of the timid. HELPED are those who lose their fear of death; theirs is the power to envision the future in a blade of grass. HELPED are those who love and actively support the diversity of life; they shall be secure in their differences. HELPED are those who KNOW.

What use is a god with boundless mercy, sir? You mock me as a pagan, yet the gods of my ancestors pronounce clearly their ways and punish severely when we break their laws. Your Christian god of mercy gives men licence to pursue their greed, their lust for land and blood, knowing a few prayers and a little penance will bring forgiveness and blessing.

It seemed strange, the Muslim Maghrib prayer aboard a Viking ship full of atheists and pagans. Then again, Samirah's ancestors had been dealing with Vikings since the Middle Ages. I doubted this was the first time prayers to Allah had been said aboard a longship. The world, the worlds, were a lot more interesting because of constant intermixing.

When you find yourself in one of those mystical/devotional frames of mind or in am emergency and you feel you want to pray, then pray. Don’t ever be ashamed to pray or feel prevented by thinking yourself unworthy in any way. Fact is whatever terrible thing you may have done, praying will always turn your energy around for the better. Pray to whomever, whatever, and whenever you choose. Pray to the mountain, pray to the ancestors, pray to the Earth, pray to the Tao (but it won’t listen!), pray to the Great Mother, pray to Jehovah, Allah, Buddha, Jesus, Lakshmi, Siva, pray to the Great Spirit, it makes no difference. Praying is merely a device for realigning the mind, energy, and passion of your local self with the mind, energy and passion of your universal self. When you pray, you are praying to the god or goddess within you. This has an effect on your energy field, which in turn translates into a positive charge that makes something good happen.

A spontaneous prayer makes differences and does changes.

There are many problems which could only be solved by generations which are still to be born later. It's only one way of many how God gives answers to human problems and prayers.

We are busy with the luxury of things. Their number and multiple faces bring To us confusion we call knowledge. Say: God created the world, pinned night to day, Made mountains to weigh it down, seas To wash its face, living creatures with pleas (The ancestors of prayers) seeking a place In this mystery that floats in endless space. God set the earth on the back of a bull, The bull on a fish dancing on a spool Of silver light so fine it is like air; That in turn rests on nothing there But nothing that nothing can share. All things are but masks at God's beck and call, They are symbols that instruct us that God is all.

Disannulling Ungodly Covenants I break and disannul all ungodly covenants, oaths, and pledges I have made with my lips in the name of Jesus. I renounce and break all ungodly oaths made by my ancestors to idols, demons, false religions, or ungodly organizations in the name of Jesus (Matt. 5:33).

Theology is like assuming that there is a black cat in a dark room where in fact there is no black cat, and endeavoring to study the cat's properties and how it may have evolved from its ancestors.

Rite To Ancestors: Hail to those who have passed through the veil From Life to Death, to Earth from Breath. Hail to those who suffered to gift me with blood, Hail to those who survived to gift me with body, Hail to those whose songs gift me with inspiration. Hail to those whom I knew and loved in life, Whose memory I carry with me like a word of comfort, Hail to those who left this land long ago, Whose names I honor like a word of hope, Or if I know not their names, whose lives I honor still. I live and love because you lived and loved, I speak and struggle because you spoke and struggled, You live in me, as I will live in those who come after me. Grant me the patience, O my beloved Dead, To see the long view, and remember that what I do Affects a million million souls I will never know.

For the weeping warriors, for the savage saints, for the bleeding mothers with fire in their eyes, for the hidden mystics whose prayers keep the earth spinning, for the buddhas who'll use their teeth when their blades are broken and let their evolutionary ancestors howl through them, this one is for you, my lovelies.

The role of dominance and submission in human sexuality cannot be overstated. Our survey suggests that the majority (over 50%) of humans are very aroused by either acting out or witnessing dominance or submission. But it gets crazier than that: While 45% of women taking our survey said they found the naked male form to be very arousing and 48% said they found the sight of a penis to very arousing, a heftier 53% said they found their partner acting dominant in a sexual context to be very arousing. Dominance is literally more likely to be very arousing to the average female than naked men or penises. To say: “Dominance and submission are tied to human arousal patterns” is more of an understatement than saying: “Penises are tied to human arousal patterns.” We have a delectable theory about what is going on here: If you look at all the emotional states that frequently get tied to arousal pathways, the vast majority of them seem to be proxies for behaviors that would have been associated with our pre-human ancestors’ and early humans’ dominance and submission displays. For example, things like humiliation, being taken advantage of, chains, being used, being useful, being constrained, a lack of freedom, being prey, and a lack of free will may all have been concepts and emotions important in early human submission displays. We posit that most of the time when a human is turned on by a strange emotional concept—being bound for instance—their brain is just using that concept as a proxy for a pre-human submission display and lighting up the neural pathways associated with it, creating a situation in which it looks like a large number of random emotional states are turning humans on, when in reality they all boil down to just a fuzzy outline of dominance and submission. Heck, speaking of binding as a submission display, there were similar ritualized submission displays in the early middle ages, in which a vassal would present their hands clasped in front of their lord and allow the lord to hold their clasped hands in a way that rendered them unable to unclasp them (this submission display to one’s lord is where the symbolism of the Christian kneeling and hands together during prayer ritual comes from). We suspect the concept of binding and defenselessness have played important roles in human submission displays well into pre-history. Should all this be the case, why on earth have our brains been hardwired to bind (hehe) our recognition of dominance and submission displays to our sexual arousal systems?!?

The African powers, child. The spirits. The loas. The orishas. The oldest ancestors. You will hear people from Haiti and Cuba and Brazil and so call them different names. You will even hear some names I ain’t tell you, but we all mean the same thing. Them is the ones who does carry we prayers to God Father, for he too busy to listen to every single one of we on earth talking at he all the time. Each of we have a special one who is we father or mother, and no matter what we call it, whether Shango or Santeria or Voudun or what, we all doing the same thing. Serving the spirits.

But that was never the heart of Sweet Mercy. The shipheart wasn’t the foundation of the convent. It was always the faith. Always the notion that all men and women are our brothers and our sisters. And that faith doesn’t end with borders. It doesn’t care about heresies used to divide us, or whether you speak your prayers to a white star, or to the fields and forests and stones.

Mountain’s realization comes through the details of the breath, mountain appears in each step. Mountain then lives inside our bones, inside our heart-drum. It stands like a huge mother in the atmosphere of our minds. Mountain draws ancestors together in the form of clouds. Heaven, Earth and human meet in the raining of the past. Heaven, Earth and human meet in the winds of the future. Mountain mother is a birth gate that joins the above and below, she is a prayer house, she is a mountain. Mountain is a mountain.

Love to my ancestors. Thanks to YAHWEH. Thanks to YAHSHUA. Thanks to ELOHIM. The protection ring around me is solid.

In a society so estranged from animals as ours, we often fail to credit them with any form of language. If we do, it comes under the heading of communication rather than speech. And yet, the great silence we have imposed on the rest of life contains innumerable forms of expression. Where does our own language come from but this unfathomed store that characterizes innumerable species? We are now more than halfway removed from what the unwritten word meant to our ancestors, who believed in the original, primal word behind all manifestations of the spirit. You sang because you were answered. The answers come from life around you. Prayers, chants, and songs were also responses to the elements, to the wind, the sun and stars, the Great Mystery behind them. Life on earth springs from a collateral magic that we rarely consult. We avoid the unknown as if we were afraid that contact would lower our sense of self-esteem.

It is beginning." Pak Eng and Laughing Chan and Peter all look at Hock Seng with respect. "You were right." Hock Seng nods impatiently. "I learn." The storm is gathering. The megodonts must do battle. It is their fate. The power sharing of the last coup could never last. The beasts must clash and one will establish final dominance. Hock Seng murmurs a prayer to his ancestors that he will come out of this maelstrom alive.

Mountains have long been a geography for pilgrimage, place where people have been humbled and strengthened, they are symbols of the sacred center. Many have traveled to them in order to find the concentrated energy of Earth and to realize the strength of unimpeded space. Viewing a mountain at a distance or walking around its body we can see its shape, know its profile, survey its surrounds. The closer you come to the mountain the more it disappears, the mountain begins to lose its shape as you near it, its body begins to spread out over the landscape losing itself to itself. On climbing the mountain the mountain continues to vanish. It vanishes in the detail of each step, its crown is buried in space, its body is buried in the breath. On reaching the mountain summit we can ask, “What has been attained?” - The top of the mountain? Big view? But the mountain has already disappeared. Going down the mountain we can ask, “What has been attained?” Going down the mountain the closer we are to the mountain the more the mountain disappears, the closer we are to the mountain the more the mountain is realized. Mountain’s realization comes through the details of the breath, mountain appears in each step. Mountain then lives inside our bones, inside our heart-drum. It stands like a huge mother in the atmosphere of our minds. Mountain draws ancestors together in the form of clouds. Heaven, Earth and human meet in the raining of the past. Heaven, Earth and human meet in the winds of the future. Mountain mother is a birth gate that joins the above and below, she is a prayer house, she is a mountain. Mountain is a mountain.

I had spent an entire life praying for a miracle, and none had come. And now I looked at the stuffy chapel of my ancestors and saw vanity and greed, heard the call to prayer and thought of power, smelled incense and wondered at the waste of it all.

I make a prayer now to your old ones, to those whose face you never saw and voice you never heard and name you haven’t known, that they remember you while you try to find them remembering you, that they come at the proper time to gather you in, that they whisper to you the truth that you haven’t been alone, and won’t be, that they know the hard friendship of the ending of days; I make a prayer that all who were there at your making will be there for your gathering in, that their hands will be there just by your opening head, your little fountain, to make a home for your sorrowing heart and for you; I make a prayer that your house and your people will be blessed by your coming and your going, that the day will come when they will boast of for a while having known you, and will marvel at the way of your going out from among them, and that you might be reason enough for them to continue for a while, and that in the days to come you will be claimed as noble, as an ancestor worth coming from.

When we listen to those stories, not only are we hearing tales of days gone by, we are also hearing the voices of all of those who lived before us. Those ancestors are not gone from our lives. They live in the stories, and they linger in our environments. They come to us in dreams and during ceremonies. They whisper to us in quiet moments and bring us comfort. One of my favorite stories is about a friend's experience with the ancestors. She was doing repatriation work, which involves caring for the remains of an ancestor until they can be properly buried with their people. In this instance, the ancestor that she was caring for had been part of a gruesome display in a museum. During her time with him, she remained in prayer when he came to her and gave her a message. First, he thanked her for bringing him back home. Then, he told her, "we dreamed you into the future." Our ancestors lived for us; they died for us; and they dreamed for us. Through their collective imaginings, we were all brought into being. What an incredible honor it is for us to carry their life forward through our own.

May Taga find your spirit and guide you home to the sea beyond. In clear water where danger will never catch you. Among the coral and caves where the bounty is full. Alongside your ancestors and their ancestors that loneliness never hold you. His kingdom your own beloved child of the gods.

I would not have the anniversaries of our victories celebrated, nor those of our defeats made fast days and spent in humiliation and prayer; but I would like to see truthful history written. Such history will do full credit to the courage, endurance and soldierly ability of the American citizen, no matter what section of the country he hailed from, or in what ranks he fought. The justice of the cause which in the end prevailed, will, I doubt not, come to be acknowledged by every citizen of the land, in time. For the present, and so long as there are living witnesses of the great war of sections, there will be people who will not be consoled for the loss of a cause which they believed to be holy. As time passes, people, even of the South, will begin to wonder how it was possible that their ancestors ever fought for or justified institutions which acknowledged the right of property in man.

This, the universal Christ who, in grace and love, holds all things and all people and all creatures in that grace, is what gives me hope in this world. The universal Christ, who is not a colonizer, who does not seek after profit or create empires to rule over the poor or to oppress people, is constantly asking us to see ourselves as we fit in this sacredly created world. It is what my Potawatomi ancestors saw when they prayed to Kche Mnedo, to Mamogosnan, and is what our relatives still see when they pray today, a sacred belonging that spans time and generations and is called by many names. Today, it is what I continue to see in my own faith—not a Christianity bound by a sinner’s prayer and an everyday existence ruled by gender-divided Bible studies and accountability meetings but a story of faith that’s always bigger, always more inclusive, always making room at a bigger and better table full of lavish food that has already been prepared for everyone and for every created thing.

they leave behind the places where their dead are buried – their mothers and fathers. The dead are bound to that place, and have returned to the land there. Because of this, Natives who are forced out of their homelands no longer have connections to their ancestors, and thus, to the spirit world. Their medicines no longer work. Their prayers are no longer

was Owen Meany who told me that only white men are vain enough to believe that human beings are unique because we have souls. According to Owen, Watahantowet knew better. Watahantowet believed that animals had souls, and that even the much-abused Squamscott River had a soul—Watahantowet knew that the land he sold to my ancestors was absolutely full of spirits.

As I sat in the old church where generations of my ancestors may have worshipped, where prayers had been spoken and hearts broken and healed, it all made sense for a small moment. Religion made sense, if only to add context to the struggle of life and death. The church was a monument to what had been, a connection to the past that comforted those in the present, and it comforted me.

You deserve success in every area of your life. I love you, unconditionally, no matter what happened to you, no matter what was done to you or not done for you. I also love you unconditionally, no matter what terrible things you have done in this life. And I love your parents and ancestors and accept them unconditionally. My prayer for you and your family is that you all know unconditional love, joy, and peace.

I have always found it difficult not to be moved by Jerusalem, even when I hated it—and God knows I have hated it for the sheer human cost of it. But the sight of it, from afar or inside the labyrinth of its walls, softens me. Every inch of it holds the confidence of ancient civilizations, their deaths and their birthmarks pressed deep into the city's viscera and onto the rubble of its edges. The deified and the condemned have set their footprints in its sand. It has been conqured, razed and, rebuilt so many times that its stones seem to possess life, bestowed by the audit trail of prayer and blood. Yet somehow, it exhales humility. It sparks an inherent sense of familiary in me—that doubtless, irrefutable Palestinian certainty that I belong to this land. It possesses me, no matter who conquers it, because its soil is the keeper of my roots, of the bones of my ancestors. Because it knows the private lust that flamed the beds of all my foremothers. Because I am the natural seed of its passionate, tempestuous past. I am a daughter of the land, and Jerusalem reassures me of this inalienable right, far more than the yellowed property deeds, the Ottoman land registries, the iron keys to our stolen homes, or UN resolutions and decrees of superpowers could ever do.

I am a teacher. I am a writer. I am a poet. I am a minister. I am church. I am dance. I am the breath of the ancestors. I am the joy of God. I am my grandmother’s prayers. I am my grandfather’s dreaming. I am incense burning. I am a woman. I am the natural dread. I am a woman who loves the company of other women. I am a woman who honors the ancestors. I am sister. I am daughter. I am a daughter of Oshun. I am a person who feels deeply. I am alive. I am whole. I am a woman who believes in freedom. I am a woman who fights for freedom. I am a co-journeyer. I am a friend. I am loved by many.

To be quite frank, we do not at all like the idea of a “chosen people.” Democrats by birth and education, we should prefer to think that all nations and individuals start level in the search for God, or even that all religions are equally true. It must be admitted at once that Christianity makes no concessions to this point of view. It does not tell of a human search for God at all, but of something done by God for, to, and about Man. And the way in which it is done is selective, undemocratic, to the highest degree. After the knowledge of God had been universally lost or obscured, one man from the whole earth (Abraham) is picked out. He is separated (miserably enough, we may suppose) from his natural surroundings, sent into a strange country, and made the ancestor of a nation who are to carry the knowledge of the true God. Within this nation there is further selection: some die in the desert, some remain behind in Babylon. There is further selection still. The process grows narrower and narrower, sharpens at last into one small bright point like the head of a spear. It is a Jewish girl at her prayers. All humanity (so far as concerns its redemption) has narrowed to that.

But the strains of the doleful song stirred such powerful nostalgia for lost loves and for things lost over the course of one's life and for lives, like my grandfather's, that had come long before mine that I was suddenly taken back to a poor, disconsolate universe of simple folk like Mafalda's ancestors, fretting and scurrying in the tiny vicoli of an old Naples whose memory I wanted to share word for word with Oliver now, as if he too, like Mafalda and Manfredi and Anchise and me, were a fellow southerner whom I'd met in a foreign port city and who'd instantly understand why the sound of this old song, like an ancient prayer for the dead in the deadest of languages, could bring tears even in those who couldn't understand a syllable.

TIMOTHY 1 Paul,  aan apostle of Christ Jesus  bby the will of God according to  cthe promise of the life that is in Christ Jesus, 2To Timothy,  dmy beloved child: eGrace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. Guard the Deposit Entrusted to You 3 fI thank God  gwhom I serve, as did my ancestors,  hwith a clear conscience, as I remember you  iconstantly in my prayers night and day. 4 jAs I remember your tears,  kI long to see you, that I may be filled with joy. 5I am reminded of  lyour sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and  myour mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well. 6For this reason I remind you  nto fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, 7for God gave us  oa spirit not of fear but  pof power and love and self-control.

The dawn, even when it is cold and melancholy, never fails to shoot through my limbs as with arrows of sparkling piercing ice. I pull aside the thick curtains, and search for the first glow in the sky which shows that life is breaking through. And with my cheek leant upon the window pane I like to fancy that I am pressing as closely as can be upon the massy wall of time, which is for ever lifting and pulling and letting fresh spaces of life in upon us. May it be mine to taste the moment before it has spread itself over the rest of the world! Let me taste the newest and the freshest. From my window I look down upon the Church yard, where so many of my ancestors are buried, and in my prayer I pity those poor dead men who toss perpetually on the old recurring waters; for I see them, circling and eddying forever upon a pale tide. Let us, then, who have the gift of the present, use it and enjoy it...

Prayer is one of the few spiritual practices that is pointless unless God is real. Meditation calms the body whether or not there's a spiritual being receiving our deliberate breathing and clear mind. Reading sacred texts aligns us with the wisdom of our ancestors whether or not it was divinely inspired. Church attendance connects us to the needs of our community. Fasting cleanses the body of toxic substances. Resting on Sundays allows us to let go of stress and worry. But prayer? Taking time to pour out our needs and our anxieties, demanding change, confessing sin, crying out for help - all of these things depend upon the existence of God, and specifically the existence of a God who hears and responds to our cries. Prayer in the face of insurmountable problems is an admission of weakness and need. Prayer is a commitment to a better future, a sign of faith that the world will one day be made right. Prayer is an act that emerges out of helplessness. Prayer is an act of hope.

I have always found it difficult not to be moved by Jerusalem, even when I hated it—and God knows I have hated it for the sheer human cost of it. But the sight of it, from afar or inside the labyrinth of its walls, softens me. Every inch of it holds the confidence of ancient civilizations, their deaths and their birthmarks pressed deep into the city's viscera and onto the rubble of its edges. The deified and the condemned have set their footprints in its sand. It has been conquered, razed and, rebuilt so many times that its stones seem to possess life, bestowed by the audit trail of prayer and blood. Yet somehow, it exhales humility. It sparks an inherent sense of familiarity in me—that doubtless, irrefutable Palestinian certainty that I belong to this land. It possesses me, no matter who conquers it, because its soil is the keeper of my roots, of the bones of my ancestors. Because it knows the private lust that flamed the beds of all my foremothers. Because I am the natural seed of its passionate, tempestuous past. I am a daughter of the land, and Jerusalem reassures me of this inalienable right, far more than the yellowed property deeds, the Ottoman land registries, the iron keys to our stolen homes, or UN resolutions and decrees of superpowers could ever do.

Employment Prayer II by Sonya I. Perkins As I embark on new areas in my life, I ask for the blessings and guidance of God, my ancestors, my spirit guides, and guardian angels. I ask for their blessings to guide me through this difficult period in my life. May I walk through this time with my head held high and with faith in myself and in spirit, and may I survive hard times as my ancestors survived hard times. I ask in the name of God for assistance in my search for suitable and gainful employment. I ask that my ancestors hear my pleas and put the right devices into my path, such as advertisements and people like recruiters, and that word of mouth reach my ears if the work is right for me. I ask that whatever opportunities are looking to find someone, let that opportunity find me, for I will be grateful for the blessing that opportunity will bequeath me. I ask that opportunity search and find me, as I have searched and searched for employment. They say opportunity knocks, but only one time. My eyes are open to see opportunity; my ears await the sound of opportunity knocking. I am ready to receive opportunity. I have patience, and I will continue to search for the job/career that is right for only me. I seek employment not just for a paycheck but also to be a productive, contributing member of my community. I ask for a suitable job, so that I may take care of my loved ones and myself. I ask for work to come to my hands so that I may feel and be useful. I ask that the people I work with be decent, friendly, hard working, and easy to get along with. I ask that I be compensated accordingly for the work that I provide. I ask that the job I secure will be something that I can look forward to doing on a daily basis. In the name of the divine providence, may my roads be opened and clear for me to find the right job. In the name of my spirit guides, I pray that the door of opportunity be opened to me as I try to become a more productive being. In the name of my guardian angel, I ask that you assist me during the hard times and help me to make it through until suitable employment is held securely in my hands. In the name of the most high and all that is light, I ask for these blessings for myself and for all those in search of employment for the betterment of all. So it was spoken, so it shall be.  Àṣe o!

On these lands, in both the occupied places and those left to grow wild, alongside the community and the dwindling wildlife, there lived another creature. At night, he roamed the roads that connected Arcand to the larger town across the Bay where Native people were still unwelcome two centuries on. His name was spoken in the low tones saved for swear words and prayer. He was the threat from a hundred stories told by those old enough to remember the tales. Broke Lent? The rogarou will come for you. Slept with a married woman? Rogarou will find you. Talked back to your mom in the heat of the moment? Don't walk home. Rogarou will snatch you up. Hit a woman under any circumstance? Rogarou will call you family, soon. Shot too many deer, so your freezer is overflowing but the herd thin? If I were you, I'd stay indoors at night. Rogarou knows by now. He was a dog, a man, a wolf. He was clothed, he was naked in his fur, he wore moccasins to jig. He was whatever made you shiver but he was always there, standing by the road, whistling to the stars so that they pulsed bright in the navy sky, as close and as distant as ancestors. For girls, he was the creature who kept you off the road or made you walk in packs. The old women never said, "Don't go into town, it is not safe for us there. We go missing. We are hurt." Instead, they leaned in and whispered a warning: "I wouldn't go out on the road tonight. Someone saw the rogarou just this Wednesday, leaning against the stop sign, sharpening his claws with the jawbone of a child." For boys, he was the worst thing you could ever be. "You remember to ask first and follow her lead. You don't want to turn into Rogarou. You'll wake up with blood in your teeth, not knowing and no way to know what you've done." Long after that bone salt, carried all the way from the Red River, was ground to dust, after the words it was laid down with were not even a whisper and the dialect they were spoken in was rubbed from the original language into common French, the stories of the rogarou kept the community in its circle, behind the line. When the people forgot what they had asked for in the beginning - a place to live, and for the community to grow in a good way - he remembered, and he returned on padded feet, light as stardust on the newly paved road. And that rogarou, heart full of his own stories but his belly empty, he came home not just to haunt. He also came to hunt.

To write with truth, I’ve been known to slow dance my words over graves of buried prayers, to drink my words under the shadow of my grandfather’s whiskey bottles, to lift my words from under the gaze of my daddy’s gentle eyes. I’ve had to write from the seeding syllables of my gardens, from the ammunition of my ancestors’ battlegrounds, and from the misery of my families’ tattered Bibles. I’ve pulled stories from the soil of my homeplace, from the juice stains of freshly-picked blackberries, and from the bottom of my bare feet. I write with the barbed-wire nouns and plural verbs of my mistakes, with the cast iron consonants and silent sugary vowels of my mother’s kitchen. But in the end, the only thing that matters is that I write.

I am the prayer of my ancestors.

I am a prayer of my ancestors.

This little girl will be fearless. She’ll do whatever she wants. She won’t feel as scared as me.” A quiet mantra, she repeated it daily.

they leave behind the places where their dead are buried – their mothers and fathers. The dead are bound to that place, and have returned to the land there. Because of this, Natives who are forced out of their homelands no longer have connections to their ancestors, and thus, to the spirit world. Their medicines no longer work. Their prayers are no longer heard. “Eventually, the younger generations forget the names of sacred places. And as the names and history and wisdom are forgotten, the peoples’ spiritual power diminishes. The culture collapses. How they perceive this change affects their whole way of life.

Numerous gifted objects; black granite Etchings, carved statues, broken goddesses, Inscriptions, pottery, jewelry, rough-hewn Garnets, flowers, consecrated herbs, skulls, Gold ornaments, weapons, prized artifacts; Sacrifices, ancestors’ ageless prayers Left with olden Father Thames. For them, The sinuous streams were alive, full worlds Of votive offerings inside murky depths, Lifeblood pleas, observances thereafter Troubles now vanished, solemn promises, Treasures carefully bestowed upon Spirits, watchful deities; faithfully Invoking his ancient name Tamesas.

God, I pray that my family will continue on in the faith. Give my children ears to hear and the memory to recall their legacy in future years. Remind us to pray often for family members and for our descendants, just as some of our ancestors surely prayed for us. Create from us, O Lord, a family legacy that will honor you for generations to come.

I was taught that each direction holds the energies of a sacred element and also correlates to a stage in the life cycle. In the Nahua tradition, we begin by facing the east, then turn to our left (as our heart is on our left) to face the west, then turn a three-quarter circle to face the north, then a half circle to face the south. Return to the center and raise arms or gaze up to the sky, and then kneel down to touch the earth. The following prayers may be said to honor each direction. We

Our ancestors’ deep and abiding faith in God’s knowledge of their struggles and belief that God heard their earnest prayers gave them not only the strength to endure but the hope that one day they would be liberated from the hands of their bullying oppressors.

Our ancestors did great work for humanity. What will we do for the next generations?

As a child, I had not known the world anthropology or that there was a thing called Ivy League. I had not known that you could spend your days on planes, moving through the world, studying death, your whole life before this life an unanswered question...finally answered. I had seen death in Indonesia and Korea. Death in Mauritania and Mongolia. I had watched the people of Madagascar exhume the muslin-wrapped bones of their ancestors, spray them with perfume, and ask those who had already passed to the next place for their stories, prayers, blessings. I had been home a month watching my father die. Death didn't frighten me. Not now. Not anymore. But Brooklyn felt like a stone in my throat.

APRIL 9 YOU ARE REDEEMED FROM THE CURSE THROUGH THE BLOOD OF JESUS YOU ARE THE seed of Abraham, and I have redeemed you from the curse through the blood of My Son, Jesus. I have given you blessing instead of cursing, and life instead of death. I will break and release you from all generational curses and iniquities that came as a result of the sins of your ancestors. I have broken all curses of witchcraft, sorcery, and divination against you through the power of My Son. I will break and rebuke all curses of sickness and infirmity in My Son’s name. You have been redeemed—you are set free. GALATIANS 3:13–14; DEUTERONOMY 11:26 Prayer Declaration I choose blessing instead of cursing, and life instead of death. The blood of Jesus Christ has redeemed me from the curse. No longer will I fear the curse of the enemy, for I have been set free by the power of Jesus Christ.

1.  Declaration of Intent: Hand lifting to the sky The first step is the collective declaration of intent to reestablish Kintuadi between Creator, Catalyst and Creation. That collective intent was implemented and manifested by the physical act of hand lifting to the sky.   Objective: To first acknowledge that we are lost due to a false start and to seek the alignment and the Kintuadi of 3 Components; Creator, Catalyst and Creation (CCC).   2.  Commitment and Decision: Cross Jumping The second step is the collective commitment and decision to abandon sinful, flesh and material driven life, and jump to the side of the creator and Christ. That collective commitment and decision was implemented and manifested by the physical act of cross jumping.   Objective: To stop and commit to a change of direction.   3.  Fasting and Meditation: Spiritual Retreat The third step is the collective fasting and meditation to gradually reduce total dependency on flesh and material driven life. This is the step of seeking spiritual enlightment, guidance and purpose for life. It is achieved by a temporary but frequent isolation and spiritual retreats. During this step, the body and soul are cleansed and fed with spiritual food.   Objective: To stop dependency on human guidance but seeks spiritual guidance and direction.   4.  Devotion and Service to God: Temple Construction (1987) The fourth step is the collective devotion and service to God. Now that body and soul are cleansed and fed spiritually, man devotion and service to god is manifested by the construction of the temple as an offering to God. The real temple is the body of Christ, the supreme sacrifice.   Objective: To regain God’s trust by gradually training the flesh and material wealth to serve God.   5.  Prayers and Faith Consolidation: Spiritual Soiree (1990s) Now that body and soul have constructed the sanctuary, the place of reunion and spiritual communion with God. This fifth step is the step of collective prayers and faith consolidation at the sanctuary, the place of invocation and the real body of Christ, our Catalyst.   Objective: To repair and reestablish communication between Creator, Catalyst and Creation.   6.  Redemption: The Begging for forgiveness; December 24, 1992 In the name of all humanity, on December 24, 1992 followers of Simon Kimbangu lead by Papa Dialungana Kiangani (Kimbangu son) gathered inside the temple in Nkamba, all wearing sac clothes and begged for the forgiveness of Adamus and eve original sin. After asking for forgiveness that Adamus himself did not have the courage to ask, the Kimbanguists burned all sac clothes. In 1994, Adeneho Nana Oduro Numapau II, President of the Ghana National House of Chiefs, initiated ceremonies in Africa and the Americas to beg forgiveness of African Americans for his ancestors ‘involvement in the slave trade.   Objective: To reestablish and maintain interconnectivity between Creator, Catalyst and Creation.   7.  Return to Eden, the Realm of Kintuadi (Oneness) December 24th, 1992 marked the beginning of a new spiritual era for mankind in general but for Africans in particular. The chains of physical and spiritual slavery were broken on that date. The spiritual exodus from Egypt, the land of Slavery to Eden, the Promised Land also started that date. On May 10, 1994 Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as the first black President of South Africa, Africa most powerful country. On January 20, 2009, Barack Hussein Obama was inaugurated as the first African American president of the United States, the most powerful country on earth.   Objective: To enjoy the Oneness between Creator, Catalyst and Creation.  Chapter 27  Kimbangu’s Wife, 3 sons  and 30 Grand Children As stated in chapter 11, few months after Kimbangu’s birth, his mother Luezi died, so Kimbangu did not know his biological mother and was raised by Kinzembo, his maternal aunt.

FEBRUARY 12 UNGODLY COVENANTS MADE BY YOUR ANCESTORS ARE BROKEN IF YOU VIOLATE My covenant, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, My anger will burn against you, and you will quickly perish from the good land I have given you. But if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your forefathers forever and ever. I have laid a sure foundation, and if you rely on My precious cornerstone and make My justice your measuring line and righteousness your plumb line, then I will disannul all ungodly covenants your ancestors made with idols, demons, false religious, or ungodly organizations in the name of My Son, Jesus. I will take hold of your hand and will keep you and make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for unbelievers. EXODUS 23:31–33; MATTHEW 5:33; ISAIAH 42:6 Prayer Declaration I break and disannul all ungodly covenants, oaths, and pledges I have made with my lips in the name of Jesus. I break and disannul all covenants with death and hell made by my ancestors in the name of Jesus. I command all demons that claim any legal right to my life through covenants to come out in the name of Jesus.

When they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin—and you become angry with them and give them over to their enemies, who take them captive to their own lands, far away or near; and if they have a change of heart in the land where they are held captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captors and say, ‘We have sinned, we have done wrong, we have acted wickedly’; and if they turn back to you with all their heart and soul in the land of their enemies who took them captive, and pray to you toward the land you gave their ancestors, toward the city you have chosen and the temple I have built for your Name; then from heaven, your dwelling place, hear their prayer and their plea, and uphold their cause. And forgive your people, who have sinned against you; forgive all the offenses they have committed against you, and cause their captors to show them mercy; for they are your people and your inheritance, whom you brought out of Egypt, out of that iron-smelting furnace.

the prophet Ezekiel. Hear the word of the Lord…” Though you don't deserve what I'm going to do for you, I will lead you home to bring honor to my name and to show foreign nations that I am holy. Then, they will know that I am the Lord God. I have spoken. I will gather you from the foreign nations and bring you home. I will sprinkle you with clean water, and you will be clean and acceptable to me. I will wash away everything that makes you unclean, and I will remove your disgusting idols. I will take away your stubborn heart and give you a new heart and a desire to be faithful. You will have only pure thoughts, because I will put my Spirit in you and make you eager to obey my laws and teachings. You will once again live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God. I will protect you from anything that makes you unclean. Your fields will overflow with grain, and no one will starve. Your trees will be filled with fruit, and crops will grow in your fields, so that you will never again feel ashamed for not having enough food. You will remember your evil ways and hate yourselves for what you've done… After I have made you clean, I will let you rebuild your ruined towns and let you live in them. Your land will be plowed again, and nobody will be able to see that it was once barren. Instead, they will say that it looks as beautiful as the garden of Eden. They won't see towns lying in ruins, but they will see your strong cities filled with people. Then the nearby nations that survive will know that I am the one who rebuilt the ruined places and replanted the barren fields. I, the Lord, make this promise. I will once again answer your prayers, and I will let your nation grow until you are like a large flock of sheep. The towns that now lie in ruins will be filled with people, just as Jerusalem was once filled with sheep to be offered as sacrifices during a festival. Then you will know that I am the LORD.1

The last form of guilt is existential in character; it is an unavoidable concomitant of being human. For example, we understand that the principle which underlies life is death. Not only are life and death the systole and diastole of the cosmos, but all life depends on killing. We kill animals to survive. If we choose to be vegetarian, we slay plant life. If we stop eating we commit suicide. For this reason our ancestors offered “grace” at meals, that is, not only thanks but the acknowledgment of the principle that what we are about to eat has derived from an act of slaying. Ancient cultures, for the same reason, offered prayers before and after the hunt, and during consumption of the food, in order to acknowledge their participation in the death-rebirth cycle of the Great Mother archetype.

What evidence is there for the hypothesis that the average man is in need of an 'idol'? The evidence is so overwhelming that it is hard to select the data. First of all, the greater part of human history is characterized by the fact that the life of man has been permeated by religions. Most of the gods of these religions have had the function of giving man support and strength, and religious practice has consisted essentially in appeasing and satisfying the idols. (The prophetic and later Christian religions were originally anti-idolatric, in fact, God was conceived as the anti-idol. But in practice the Jewish and Christian God was experienced by most believers as an idol, as the great power whose help and support could be attained through prayer, ritual, and so forth.) Nevertheless, throughout the history of these religions a battle was fought against the idolization of God -philosophically, by the representatives of 'negative theology' (e.g., Maimonides) and, experientially, by some of the great mystics (e.g., Meister Eckhart or Jacob Boehme). But idolatry by no means disappeared or was weakened when religion lost its power. The nation, the class, the race, the state, the economy, became the new idols. Without the need for idols one could not possibly understand the emotional intensity of nationalism, racism, imperialism, or the 'cult of personality' in its various forms. One could not understand, for instance, why millions of people were ecstatically attracted to an ugly demagogue like Hitler; why they were willing to forget the demands of their consciences and to suffer extreme hardship for his sake. People’s eyes shine with religious fervor when they see, or can touch, a man who has risen to fame and who has, or might have, power. But the need for idols exists not only in the public sphere; if one scratches the surface, and often even without doing so, one finds that many people also have their 'private' idols: their families (sometimes, as in Japan, organized as ancestor cults), a teacher, a boss, a film star, a football team, a physician, or any number of such figures. Whether the idol can be seen (even if only rarely) or is a product of fantasy, the one bound to it never feels alone, never feels that help is not near.

Was it possible to taste or sense the medicine of a place? I wondered. What would it take to be able to do so? The priests and shamans in Hedangna also have the ability to see charawa, which is an essence in grain imbued by the ancestors that makes the grain last much longer than the physical substance otherwise should. Charawa echoes what Lizzie describes as the medicine of place, that unseen web that when enlivened through prayer translates into the material world. Like the laral value of an object, this unseen quality is strengthened by the offerings we make, offerings expressed in our care and attention. This first requires that we deem this web of relationships, from mycorrhizal networks to Hildegard’s viriditas, worthy and recognize that it needs our care. Not seeing this invisible dimension, the priests and shamans say, makes humans selfish. Because we cannot see this web of reciprocity on which our life depends, we do not understand our role in that web and our responsibility for the part we play. As Jeff said, we begin to believe we are in charge.

Well, obviously your prayers wouldn’t. Which deity or ancestor is going to listen to a filthy eunuch? They might listen to me. But it’s true: I do feel more comfortable putting my faith in the efforts of my own hands.

How will you find happiness in this world and peace in the world to come? By learning these wisdom practices from your ancestors: Honor those who gave you life Be kind Keep learning Invite others into your life Be there when others need you Celebrate good times Support yourself and others during times of loss Pray with intention Forgive Look inside and commit

The Shema was-and is- the mantra of a manna-nourished people, the restorative words of those whose ancestors had wandered the wilderness in search of home. Traditionally, Jews have recited this prayer twice a day, morning and evening; a ritual repetition suggests that we need the regular reminder. Many Jews also have the verses inscribed on miniature scrolls and contained within tefillin, tiny boxes worn during worship, or mezuzot, small cases attached to the doorframes of their homes. The Shema is, like so many prayers, not so much an act of telling God something about what we are experiencing than a ritual of recentering ourselves-not on our own certainty but on our own faith; not on the futile chase for all knowledge but on the path toward relationship with the only One who can be a true know-it-all; not on ourselves but on the One who made us and the One who is with us. "We are all interconnected in this world, every rock and stone, every creature," says Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, the senior cantor at New York City's Central Synagogue, who grew up reciting this prayer with her sister every night and now does the same with her own three children. The Shema offers a steady reminder: "God is in all things." But if this were easy to remember, and if this path were painless, and if this journey were easy, and if loving God-or even just recognizing God-weren't so counterintuitive, why exactly would you need all your heart, all your soul, and all your might?

Begin by calling in your council of spirit guides. Grandfather, I'm calling on you; I need your guidance now. Grandmother, I'm calling on you; I need your guidance now. Ancestors, I'm calling on you; I need your guidance now. Creator, I'm calling on you; I need your guidance now. 2. State your prayer in simple terms. I am facing [INSERT TROUBLING ISSUE], and I don't know what to do. I bring this issue to you for your guidance. Please bless this prayer with clarity, protection, and favor for the highest and best good for all. 3. Pray for Mother Earth. And please bless our Mother Earth with healing and protection and ease the suffering of all her children. 4. Close with gratitude and remembrance. I am grateful--Mitákuye Oyás'in [(Me-talk-oo-yay Oy-yaw-sin) an indigenous lakota phrase that has a combined meaning of “we are all related” and “all is connected.”]

I would become altar-builder, too, that I would place photos of ancestors and goblets of water at my windowsill. But my daily candle-lighting and batá prayers were warm-ups. My main practice was the plays. I was building the throne.

traditional Norse blessing. Facing in each direction as he speaks, he forbids all evil from entering our lives from this point forward. After invoking the gods, our ancestors, and everyone gathered here today as our witnesses, he lights a symbolic candle to purify us so that we may enter our marriage with unadulterated love. Dipping an evergreen sprig into a bowl of holy water, he anoints Ella and me, offering his blessings before binding our hands together with the rite of the white ribbon. We recite a prayer to Frigga, the goddess of marriage, followed by our vows promising to love, honor, and cherish each other. The rings we exchange were personally chosen by Ella. A moonstone set into oxidized silver for her, and a brushed silver Tungsten band for me. As the final rite of passage into married life, the Gothi pours a goblet of mead wine and brings our free hands together around the stem, encouraging each of us to drink. Once we do, he declares us bound for eternity as husband and wife. He removes the goblet, and I bring my hand to Ella’s face, sealing our marriage with a kiss. Around us, bells begin to ring, a salute from the witnesses. But Ella and I only have eyes for each other as we seal our commitment to one another. When the Gothi opens the circle again with one last symbolic prayer, we exit to our new life amongst our family and friends. Celebrations are in order, and the chef has prepared a feast of traditional foods.

Imagine yourself standing before your ancestors. Your maternal ancestors to your right and your paternal ancestors to the left. They extend before you almost like the V shape made by the pattern of flying geese. Each ancestor has two ancestors behind them. If you wish, you may fold your hands and bow before the two lineages before you. This is the prayer that I say to each of my lineages, and you may wish to adapt it for yourself or choose words that resonate with you. It can be done between sunrise and sunset. I do it once in the morning. To my maternal lineage, three generations before me, I bow before you. May the lineage be in peace and love and light and harmony. May each of you be in peace, love, light, and harmony. I am grateful for all that I have received from this lineage, including the gifts of the challenges I face. To my paternal lineage, three generations before me, I bow before you. May the lineage be in peace and love and light and harmony. May each of you be in peace, love, light, and harmony. I am grateful for all that I have received from this lineage, including the gifts of the challenges I face. As I say it, I’m very conscious of my breathing, which grounds me and helps me enter a state of gratitude.

And we might also give thought to the legacy that they have created, by which the people continue to live today. What is this legacy? We often remember ancient or traditional cultures for the monuments they have left behind--the megaliths of Stonehenge, the temples of Bangkok, the pyramids of Teotihuacán, the great ruins of Machu Picchu. People like the Koyukon have created no such monuments, but they have left something that may be unique- greater and more significant as a human achievement. This legacy is the vast land itself, enduring and essentially unchanged despite having supported human life for countless centuries. Koyukon people and their ancestors, bound to a strict code of morality governing their behavior toward nature, have been the land's stewards and caretakers. Only because they have nurtured it so well does this great legacy of land exist today. Here, perhaps, is the greatest wisdom in a world that Raven made.

When things fall apart, the children of the land scurry and scatter like birds escaping a burning sky. They flee their own wretched land so their hunger may be pacified in foreign lands, their tears wiped away in strange lands, the wounds of their despair bandaged in faraway lands, their blistered prayers muttered in the darkness of queer lands. Look at the children of the land leaving in droves, leaving their own land with bleeding wounds on their bodies and shock on their faces and blood in their hearts and hunger in their stomachs and grief in their footsteps. Leaving their mothers and fathers and children behind, leaving their umbilical cords underneath the soil, leaving the bones of their ancestors in the earth, leaving everything that makes them who and what they are, leaving because it is no longer possible to stay. They will never be the same again because you just cannot be the same once you leave behind who and what you are, you just cannot be the same. Look at them leaving in droves despite knowing they will be welcomed with restraint in those strange lands because they do not belong, knowing they will have to sit on one buttock because they must not sit comfortably lest they be asked to rise and leave, knowing they will speak in dampened whispers because

So, blessed be this season [Bealtaine], blessed be the light of Our Lady, for it is these that point to You. It is why we cherish our feast, and the time and seasons You have sent us. For in them, You teach and, in our ancestors, labours and traditions we learn.

[Jesus] looked up at his disciples and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.” —Luke 6:20–23

We don’t know what inscriptions Washington’s nephew found on the tombs of their early Virginian ancestors. But we do know what Washington’s ancestors ultimately put on his Mount Vernon tomb. Should you visit Washington’s tomb at Mount Vernon, you will read “I am the resurrection and the Life.” (John 11:25), the very first words of the funeral service in the Book of Common Prayer.

If we spent our whole lives here we would have little to offer the world and know little enough of the world to have context for our prayer …’ Seeing Nona’s frown she spoke more simply. ‘We wouldn’t understand what we’re praying for. Without knowing the chaos and confusion that washes all around this plateau, our Rock of Faith, we could not appreciate the serenity we seek.’ Abbess Glass paused and fixed Nona with dark eyes. It seemed important to her that Nona understand … that Nona believe. ‘I wasn’t always a nun. I had a son and I breathed for him. When we buried him my sorrow consumed me. Was my grief holy? Was it unique? All our hurts and follies are repeated time and again. Generation after generation live the same mistakes. But we’re not like the fire, or the river, or the wind – we’re not a single tune, its variations played out forever, a game of numbers until the world dies. There’s a story written in us. Your parents – your father and his ice tunnels, your mother and her Church of Hope, both of them, whether they loved you or left you, are in you bone-deep, remembered in your blood.

If we spent our whole lives here we would have little to offer the world and know little enough of the world to have context for our prayer'' Seeing Nona's frown she spoke more simply.'We wouldn't understand what we're praying for. Without knowing the chaos and confusion that washes all around this plateau, our Rock of Faith, we could not appreciate the serenity we seek.' Abbess Glass paused and fixed Nona with dark eyes. It seemed important to her that Nona understand' that Nona believe.'I wasn't always a nun. I had a son and I breathed for him. When we buried him my sorrow consumed me. Was my grief holy' Was it unique' All our hurts and follies are repeated time and again. Generation after generation live the same mistakes. But we're not like the fire, or the river, or the wind' we're not a single tune, its variations played out forever, a game of numbers until the world dies. There's a story written in us. Your parents' your father and his ice tunnels, your mother and her Church of Hope, both of them, whether they loved you or left you, are in you bone-deep, remembered in your blood.

I Have a Mother Who Prays for Me Some have had kings in their lineage, Some to whom honor was paid. Not blest of my ancestors—but, I have a mother who prays. I have a mother who prays for me And pleads with the Lord every day for me. Oh what a difference it makes for me— I have a mother who prays. Some have worldly success And trust in riches they’ve made— This is my surest asset, I have a mother who prays. My mother’s prayers cannot save me, Only mine can avail; But mother introduced me to Someone— Someone who never could fail. Oh yes…I have a mother who prays for me And pleads with the Lord every day for me. Oh what a difference it makes for me— I have a mother who prays. —AUTHOR UNKNOWN

Oh dear sweet baby Jesus, all the angels and saints, the Goddess, Mother Earth, all my ancestors and Dolce and Gabbana, my prayers have been answered! We'll be hosting the nuptials of my son and my darling daughter-in-law on our land. Praise Buddha," she shouted. Again the crowd went nuts. "Boy, she really hit a large cross-section of deities," Dwayne observed. "Can you pry me out of her knockers?" I begged, still unable to see anything except the cavern between her bosoms.

What would we think of a pollster who issued a definitive report on how the American people felt about a new television special, if we discovered later that he had interviewed only one person who had seen only ten minutes of the program? We would dismiss the conclusions as frivolous. Yet that is exactly the kind of evidence that too many Christians accept as the final truth about much more important matters-matters such as answered prayer, God's judgment, Christ's forgiveness, eternal salvation. The only person they consult is themselves, and the only experience they evaluate is the most recent ten minutes. But we need other experiences, the community of experience of brothers and sisters in the church, the centuries of experience provided by our biblical ancestors. A Christian who has David in his bones, Jeremiah in his bloodstream, Paul in his fingertips and Christ in his heart will know how much and how little value to put on his own momentary feelings and the experience of the past week.

On an even more fundamental level, a religious Jew might ask about the paradox of God’s essential remoteness even as his religion promotes nearness. Which shall it be? If God is transcendent, how is it possible for anyone to have a relationship with Him? And if there is no relationship with the hidden God, what is the meaning of the fundamental rituals of Judaism such as prayer? Finally, it is impossible to repeat the accounts of the ancestors’ direct encounters with God without, at some point, asking if these experiences are still possible. The desire to experience God as deeply as Abraham or Moses did lies at the heart of the mystical impulse in Judaism as much as does the temptation to bridge the abyss between the hidden God and the God who listens to, cares about, and answers the prayers of man.

prayer may be the oldest ritual for solving problems. Throughout history and across cultures our ancestors have turned to gods and spirits in times of need, seeking help in tackling everything from floods and famine to drought and disease.

Jung loved to tell “The Rainmaker Story” which he used to illustrate our journey of return to ourselves. This story is so popular in our circles that you may have heard it before. In this story, a remote village in China was experiencing a prolonged drought. The fields were parched, the crops were dying and the people were facing starvation. They had done everything they could. They prayed to their ancestors; their priests took the sacred images from their temples and marched them around the parched fields. But no prayers or rituals brought the rain that they so badly needed. In despair, the villagers pooled their last few resources and sent for a rainmaker from far away. When the little old man arrived, he found the cattle dying and the people in a miserable state. When the people asked him what he wanted, he said only a small hut and a little food and water. He went into the hut, closed the door, and left the people wondering what he was doing. On the third day, it began to rain. When he emerged, they asked him what he did. “Oh,” he replied, “that is very simple. I didn’t do anything. I came from an area that was in Tao, in balance. Your area is disturbed, out of balance, and when I came into it, I became disturbed. I retreated to the little hut to meditate, to bring myself back into balance. When I am able to get myself in order, everything around me is set right.

Sonnet of Climate Change No matter whether you are loaded, All the world's money won't save your child. As our climate gets further compromised, The rich and poor will suffer and die alike. Industry gave us affluence and advancement, But at the expense of our planet's wellbeing. Our ancestors couldn't fathom it back then, We don't have their luxury to be greedy fiend. We barely have a decade to reduce emission, After that all the prayers won't rescue humanity. You think things have been hard in your life, Wait till you hear in grave your children's agony. Enough with this bickering over phony regulation. Discard all luxury and reduce individual emission.

the old church where generations of my ancestors may have worshipped, where prayers had been spoken and hearts broken and healed, it all made sense for a small moment. Religion made sense, if only to add context to the struggle of life and death. The church was a monument to what had been, a connection to the past that comforted those in the present, and it comforted me. I climbed the slope beyond the church to where the cemetery stretched. It overlooked the spires and the winding road I’d just traveled. Some of the stones were tipped or sunken; some were so covered with lichen and time that I couldn’t make out names or dates. Other plots were new, lined by rocks and filled in with mementos. The newer plots,

Knowing this huge flaw of cognizance’s stirring from the ground, transforming into the mental consciousness, and thus serving as the support of karma and latent tendencies through associating with the great demons of apprehender and apprehended—I, Samantabhadra, did not commit even the minutest particle of contaminated virtue but was awakened as the ancestor of all buddhas.

Conjurers, mediums, clairvoyants, soothsayers, those who hold black masses or seances, Tarot readers and Ouija board fanatics, those who practice witchcraft and majick are all practicing a form of prayer. After all, if you pray to a god of a religion such as Christianity or Hunduism, are you not asking your voice to be heard by a spirit or god from another world? Are you not asking them for something or giving thanks? I see no difference in a person attempting to contact ghosts looking for lost treasure and a person praying to their god to ask for health (and wealth!) or whatever it is they want. This being said, all forms of attempted communication with otherworldly beings have very strong similarities, and this is the sort of thinking I think people should get past. Putting the effort into solving your problems and creating a peaceful, co-habitable world, gaining the strength to get what you want, protecting you loved ones from harm should be YOUR responsibility instead of asking a god, spirit, your ancestors, or any other disembodied entity to do it for you.

He [God] has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, just as he promised our ancestors. (Luke 1:51–55 NIV)

Listening and Answering Throughout most of the great Old Testament book that bears his name, Job cries out to God in agonized prayer. For all his complaints, Job never walks away from God or denies his existence—he processes all his pain and suffering through prayer. Yet he cannot accept the life God is calling him to live. Then the skies cloud over and God speaks to Job “out of the whirlwind” (Job 38:1). The Lord recounts in vivid detail his creation and sustenance of the universe and of the natural world. Job is astonished and humbled by this deeper vision of God (Job 40:3–5) and has a breakthrough. He finally prays a mighty prayer of repentance and adoration (Job 42:1–6). The question of the book of Job is posed in its very beginning. Is it possible that a man or woman can come to love God for himself alone so that there is a fundamental contentment in life regardless of circumstances (Job 1:9)?97 By the end of the book we see the answer. Yes, this is possible, but only through prayer. What had happened? The more clearly Job saw who God was, the fuller his prayers became—moving from mere complaint to confession, appeal, and praise. In the end he broke through and was able to face anything in life. This new refinement and level of character came through the interaction of listening to God’s revealed Word and answering in prayer. The more true his knowledge of God, the more fruitful his prayers became, and the more sweeping the change in his life. The power of our prayers, then, lies not primarily in our effort and striving, or in any technique, but rather in our knowledge of God. You may respond, “But God spoke audible words to Job out of a storm. I wish God spoke to me like that.” The answer is—we have something better, an incalculably clearer expression of God’s character. “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son . . . the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” (Heb 1:1–3). Jesus Christ is the Word of God (John 1:1–14) because no more comprehensive, personal, and beautiful communication of God is possible. We cannot look directly at the sun with our eyes. The glory of it would immediately overwhelm and destroy our sight. We have to look at it through a filter, and then we can see the great flames and colors of it. When we look at Jesus Christ as he is shown to us in the Scriptures, we are looking at the glory of God through the filter of a human nature. That is one of the many reasons, as we shall see, that Christians pray “in Jesus’ name.” Through Christ, prayer becomes what Scottish Reformer John Knox called “an earnest and familiar talking with God,” and John Calvin called an “intimate conversation” of believers with God, or elsewhere “a communion of men with God”—a two-way communicative interaction.98 “For through [Christ] we . . . have access to the Father by one Spirit” (Eph 2:18).

One morning we heard a sound like someone scraping a stick along a fence,” she said. “My mother stiffened. She knew. They were shooting people. We could see the man in the attic make a sign with his arms like shooting. Then we heard singing. It was Shema Yisrael.” She began to sing Shema Yisrael, the central prayer in the Jewish prayer book, softly in Hebrew. Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart. “There were two hundred people singing Shema Yisrael, including my father and brother, going to death,” she said. “I did not at the time connect the shooting with my father and brother and cousins. The shots became steady and constant. My mother held me tight.” Lola read from a letter she wrote in 1981 to her four children: Here is the essence of my story. To help my children grow, flourish and multiply without guilt or remorse, without a feeling that they are descended of people who went to slaughter like sheep. No song like Eli Eli or Ave Maria will surpass the chant of my father, my brother, my cousins, and hundreds of others as they were led to be shot. It was the most powerful, courageous, and victorious hymn. Their voices did not bleat like sheep. Their voices told of victory overcoming evil by dying like men without somebody’s blood on their hands. Their voices sang in unison a praise to the Lord. There was a might in them as if they were already one with their master. And it said Shema Yisrael, Hear Oh Israel, I will take you from your suffering and you will flourish. This was the message I received. That song was sung for me by my father. I flourished as I wish and hope my children will. My children, my dear sweet children. Your daily problems, which you try to solve with so much determination, are insignificant in the view of the awesome past of your ancestors. So you are told, but this is not true. Life is made out of difficulties and joys, of sorrows and utter happiness, but as long as your souls are not soiled with meanness which hurts others, be proud of your life. Your life is the extension of the ones which are gone. And now they are immortal. Don’t pity them. They went peacefully because they had hope for the future, your present. My father’s mighty chant was meant as well for you and yours. With all my love, your mom.

We are quick to label our ancestors as pagans, but how different are we when our calendars still depend on lunar and solar observations?