Ah, prayer. Communication with God. The cornerstone of religiosity. "Agnostic prayer" seems like a bit of an oxymoron, but I'm Agnostic Mormon Mom--my very existence is an oxymoron. So I'm here to show you how agnostic prayer can work.
I mentioned in this post that I consider prayer to be a healthy meditative practice. I do. I think we can all benefit from taking time every day to really center ourselves, contemplate where we are and what we would like to accomplish, etc. But that post was kind of vague, so I'd like to use this post to get more detailed about my prayer style.
Personal prayer is about that meditative, centering idea. It's a time for me to be really honest with myself about my weaknesses and what I need to work on. It's a time for me to think about, and actually specify with words, what it is I really want out of my day and my life and my relationships. It helps me be grateful, focus on the things I have, cultivate a positive attitude.
Here's an example of a prayer I might utter.
Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for my little family and for my husband who works so hard to support us. I'm grateful for our home and all of our material comforts. I'm grateful that we live in this country. I'm grateful for our opportunities, freedoms, and safety here. I'm grateful for my friends and family, who support me and inspire me. Please help me to always remember why I do what I do by staying at home with my kids. Please help me to find patience, energy, and inspiration when I need it, so I can be the best mom and wife I can be. I love these little people and I want nothing more than to set them on a healthy, successful path for life. Please help me to accomplish that just a little bit more each day. Please bless my husband in his job, that he will continue to excel and be happy at it. Please help me know how best to be supportive of him.
What I'm really saying there is:
I'm grateful for what I have. I have a pretty damn good life. I have a great little family and a wonderful husband who works his tail off so we can have everything we have. I'm fortunate to live where I live. I have amazing friends and family. (Maybe I should communicate that to them.) I do what I do because I believe in it. It's easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day drudgery of my job, but I have a plan here, and I'm defining it with actual words, and I'm going to stay focused on that today, through all of the tantrums and whining and laundry and diapers. I love my husband. He deserves my appreciation. Hmm...How can I show him that? How can I be supportive of him? Maybe I'll make him his favorite meal tonight, or write him a little note, or iron his shirts instead of letting them sit in the dryer and get extra wrinkled (he hates that). Or maybe I'll call him and say some cryptically naughty things to him on the phone because...well, you know.
[Okay, Adrienne, keep it clean. This is a post about prayer!]
Family prayer is my favorite kind of prayer, because it's a super effective way to communicate with family members about things they don't really listen to when I say them at other times of the day. Oh, and it's also a good time to find out what is on other people's minds.
An example of my kind of family prayer:
Heavenly Father, we're so thankful for each other. We're thankful for our home and our daddy and our food and our toys. We're thankful for our friends and that we got to have so much fun playing with them today. Please help us to always be nice to each other and to be obedient to mommy. Please help us to have good attitudes tomorrow and to do our jobs happily.
I don't think I really need to go into what I did there. :) The important thing is, everyone is focused on this one thing, and we're all thinking it together. We're reminding each other of how fortunate we are. We're aspiring to be good people and to be a strong family. We're aspiring. Together. That's awesome.
Recently one of my friends asked me if I pray at church. I do not pray at church, but nobody has ever asked me to since I came back. Rude, huh? In the past, if I had been asked to pray, I would have politely said, "You know what? I'd rather not. Sorry." No big deal.
Now days, I would probably pray, and here's why: I view an invocation as an opportunity to focus the meeting and everyone in attendance, to thank the teacher for their preparation, and to express my hope that we will all be edified. "God" is simply an object on which to focus my invocation.
Watch this:
Dear Heavenly Father,
We're so thankful to be together at church today. We're thankful for our ward family and for the support and encouragement that we give to each other. We're thankful for the scriptures and the teachings of the prophets. We're thankful for the time and effort our teacher put into preparing this lesson for us. Please help us to find inspiration and guidance in this lesson. Please bless us to take what we feel here and use it to improve our lives and the lives of those around us.
What I'm really saying there is:
Hey, all you people in this room, I'm really thankful for you. I'm thankful that we can come here and use these writings and teachings to learn and grow together. Hey, teacher, thank you for your time and dedication to helping us grow. Let's all try to find something that will inspire us so that we can grow and become better, or so that we can find whatever peace and comfort we may be seeking.
So there ya have it. Agnostic prayer. It's legit.
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
The Dark Side of Agnostic Mormon Mom--Part 2
In my last post, I admitted that my hope testimony doesn't necessarily include a hope for everything the LDS gospel encompasses. As I discussed there, I don't hope this is the "one and only true church". Well, guess what, guys? There's more I don't hope for. There's more to my dark side.
So we're taught that we can have this wonderful blessing IF we're worthy, and that means a few things. First of all, we have to get to the temple and be sealed to each other to begin with. After that, we have to keep all the commandments, AND we have to hope that all of our loved ones do the same thing, because guess what? If they aren't worthy to go to the celestial kingdom, they won't be there, regardless of how righteous you are. If your dad or husband or child decides that he doesn't want to pay tithing, or he likes a cup of coffee in the morning, or maybe he just straight up doesn't believe this stuff, you're kind of out of luck. It doesn't matter if he is an honest, loving, hard working, giving, wonderful person. You will not be with him after you die. That's according to the doctrine the way it is strictly laid out.
Now, I understand that there have been a lot of statements from church leaders that soften this doctrine. There's a popular one from Joseph Smith. I particularly like this one from Brigham Young:
“Let the father and mother, who are members of this Church and Kingdom, take a righteous course, and strive with all their might never to do a wrong, but to do good all their lives; if they have one child or one hundred children, if they conduct themselves towards them as they should, binding them to the Lord by their faith and prayers, I care not where those children go, they are bound up to their parents by an everlasting tie, and no power of earth or hell can separate them from their parents in eternity; they will return again to the fountain from whence they sprang." (quoted in Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, comp. Bruce R. McConkie, 3 vols. [1954–56], 2:90–91).
What I do hope is that Brigham Young's idea applies not only to children, but to spouses and parents and the whole human race. And pets! Because what I really hope is that there is a life after this one and families will be together there. I hope this is true regardless of what they believed here, or what building they were or were not in on Sunday (or Saturday) mornings. The loving Father I hope exists as our God would never separate people from their families based on choices they had little to no control over. He wouldn't separate families based on what belief system they happened to be born into or randomly encountered in this enormous world and throughout our very long history.
He wouldn't separate families. Period.
Being agnostic, I believe that we can't really know any of this one way or the other (at least not in this life). And since I believe that hope/belief is a choice, this is what I choose to hope:
Families are forever. No conditions.
This is where I got married. Isn't it gorgeous? And look at that handsome guy!
Mormons believe that if they are "sealed" to their families in the temple, then they will be "together forever", meaning they will not be separated after death. This is one of the very best doctrines of the church. Who doesn't want to be with their loved ones for eternity? So we're taught that we can have this wonderful blessing IF we're worthy, and that means a few things. First of all, we have to get to the temple and be sealed to each other to begin with. After that, we have to keep all the commandments, AND we have to hope that all of our loved ones do the same thing, because guess what? If they aren't worthy to go to the celestial kingdom, they won't be there, regardless of how righteous you are. If your dad or husband or child decides that he doesn't want to pay tithing, or he likes a cup of coffee in the morning, or maybe he just straight up doesn't believe this stuff, you're kind of out of luck. It doesn't matter if he is an honest, loving, hard working, giving, wonderful person. You will not be with him after you die. That's according to the doctrine the way it is strictly laid out.
Now, I understand that there have been a lot of statements from church leaders that soften this doctrine. There's a popular one from Joseph Smith. I particularly like this one from Brigham Young:
“Let the father and mother, who are members of this Church and Kingdom, take a righteous course, and strive with all their might never to do a wrong, but to do good all their lives; if they have one child or one hundred children, if they conduct themselves towards them as they should, binding them to the Lord by their faith and prayers, I care not where those children go, they are bound up to their parents by an everlasting tie, and no power of earth or hell can separate them from their parents in eternity; they will return again to the fountain from whence they sprang." (quoted in Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, comp. Bruce R. McConkie, 3 vols. [1954–56], 2:90–91).
What I do hope is that Brigham Young's idea applies not only to children, but to spouses and parents and the whole human race. And pets! Because what I really hope is that there is a life after this one and families will be together there. I hope this is true regardless of what they believed here, or what building they were or were not in on Sunday (or Saturday) mornings. The loving Father I hope exists as our God would never separate people from their families based on choices they had little to no control over. He wouldn't separate families based on what belief system they happened to be born into or randomly encountered in this enormous world and throughout our very long history.
He wouldn't separate families. Period.
Being agnostic, I believe that we can't really know any of this one way or the other (at least not in this life). And since I believe that hope/belief is a choice, this is what I choose to hope:
Families are forever. No conditions.
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