Rituals and Prayers - Questions and Answers

There are so many experiences I want to share with you, but I think the best place to start is the most recent. This was a time of great trauma for my family. My grandson, Philip, was only 19 when he died in Iraq. I have never known such grief. It was as if my Soul had been ripped right out of me with no chance of getting it back. You want to talk about a Dark Night of the Soul? We have all experienced this, or will at some time, and it is an individual crisis. No other person can possibly plumb the same depths you have; cannot possibly feel the emptiness you have or will feel. Empathy can go only so far. In my despair I wrote a poem, Rituals and Prayers – the Questions. When I wrote that I was so mad at God we were no longer on speaking terms. Then, by the Grace of God, a month later, I had my answer. That’s when I wrote the essay, Rituals and Prayers – the Answers.

I present them to you now. First read the poem then follow up with the essay. By all means share this story with anyone you feel will benefit. I can only tell you what happened to me and what worked for me. Each of us has to find our own way.

Rituals and Prayers – The Questions
How many millennia ago
did our ancestors perform
rituals to ensure the sun and moon
would rise between two stone pillars
on a certain day
during a certain time of year
and set between
two others?

They didn’t know the sun
and moon would do that
anyway.

When did High Priests and Priestesses
realize they could convince the people
they were the tribe’s only link to the Gods?
All must make your supplications
through Me if you want
something done or not done.

They didn’t know things
would happen or not anyway.

When did we start calling it prayer?
Oh, God, please this or please
not that.

When prayers are answered
God and his Angels are heaped
with thanks and praise.
Thank you Lord for hearing my prayer.

But

When prayers are not answered
failure is placed at the feet
of the petitioner.
Oh Lord, what have I done
that I don’t deserve to have
my prayers answered?

I prayed every day
Keep my family safe from harm
especially the one in greatest danger
serving his country in a foreign land.

But

he died anyway.

What if
prayer does nothing?

What if
what seems to be an answered prayer
was going to happen anyway?

What if
what seems to be an unanswered prayer
was going to happen anyway?

What if
it doesn’t matter
whether we pray or not?

What if
it is going to happen or not
anyway?

© Beverly R. Titus
09/26/06

Rituals and Prayers – The Answers
Utter devastation and despair over my grandson’s death in Iraq plunged me into a spiritual meltdown. How could I ever trust God again? How could I ever pray again? How many times had I said All I can do is pray. Now prayer had failed me. I felt so vulnerable and powerless to protect my family. My upbringing and studies etched the power of prayer into my very Soul. For the first time in my life I was keenly aware that my prayer had not been answered according to my prayer. Now I saw what I had been taught all my life as a lie.

I knew he entered this lifetime with his own agenda. He had his list of things to be accomplished, loose ends to take care of before returning to spirit—mission accomplished. Beyond that understanding, I needed a new way to pray. We don’t always know what others have come back to do. So when I prayed for his protection and safety, what he came here to do over-rode my prayer. Let the highest good be served, did nothing to relieve my anger and pain. I spiraled out of control to the bottom of my spiritual pit.

When the student is ready the teacher appears, and so it was when I came across material dealing with, in part, the subject of Forgiveness. True Forgiveness, according to the material would shift consciousness toward the Law of Grace, the higher octave of the Law of Karma. The reader was asked if he/she was ready to truly forgive, and provided a general-category list of people, places, events and things that might represent issues. My issues were on that list. I thought about those whom I blamed. I saw them as my personal Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Rev 6:1-8). In addition, there were the nameless, faceless Iraqis responsible for making and planting the roadside bombs. Could I forgive them? While meditating on Forgiveness, I remembered Jesus said, Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do. (Luke 23:34)

I called on Angels, Archangels, Ascended Masters, Brotherhoods of Light and, yes, God Himself, to help me truly forgive. Naming each individual and saying I forgive you lifted the weight of spiritual decay from my heart and Soul. I felt a palpable shift of something within me. My relationship with God has been renewed (Good Shepherd that He is!). I was able to truly forgive.

I still needed a prayer.

Again the student was ready and I came across this little gem: In the words of Meister Eckart (13th century German, Dominican mystic), If the only prayer you say in your life is thank you, that would suffice. I have been saying thank you as part of my prayers for years! I had never lost my prayer after all.

Thank you. I give thanks for all I am and ever will be, all I have, and all I am able to do. I am truly Blessed.

Thank you.

© Beverly R. Titus
10/26/06