Mindful Living Columns Focusing on God, Prayer, Prosperity, and Abundance 

Mindful Living: Prayer in Motion on the Kankamangus Highway 
Down in the little pocket between the seats in my gold Saturn I’ve stuck a Post-It note that has "Pray" written on it. This little stickie is a reminder for me to stay in touch with God; I need the reminder because I get distracted with all the things on all my other lists. Even with the reminder, I still sometimes feel awkward, maybe a bit artificial when I recite prayers. It reminds me of Janice Joplin’s tongue-in-cheek lyrics from her song Mercedes Benz: "Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz? My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends. Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends, So Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?"
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Prosperity Powder and the Dilemma of Whether to Sprinkle or Not to Sprinkle
The other day while surfing the internet waves of ebay.com, I came upon a product called "Prosperity Powder." It's a little packet of stuff (mostly aromatic spices) that claims to imbue the owner with prosperity. The idea is to sprinkle it over your wallet or purse, and wait for a wad of bills to hit you over the head. It's apparently an accoutrement of the Wiccan religion, but not being Wiccan myself, I can't say much about how it might work for a believer, much less me. But my guess is that it's not necessarily the powder itself that attracts the cash, because let's face it - there's plenty of cinnamon and lemon verbena already in my kitchen cupboard. Perhaps it has to do with the prayers of the person who made it, or my own spiritual state of mind when sprinkling it about. Maybe it's like kosher matzos which become kosher by way of some combination of prayers and strict production practices. Does it make any real difference if someone, even a holy someone, prays over this powder or this matzo?
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Talking Back To God
When my sister Cindy is in a jocular mood, she sometimes tells me that I have "Joan of Arc" syndrome. What she means is that I get these visions, and just have to do whatever it is that gets stuck in my head. Sometimes it’ll be to write something that Spirit whispered to me last week, but sometimes it’s just an urge to fry up some of my famous chicken and cheese egg rolls. An urge so strong that I’ll drive out though the rain to buy those little eggroll wrappy things. It’s my sister’s task to remind me that sometimes, the "duck and cover" approach beats charging into the fray like Joan of Arc did.
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Underneath the Hoopla
What happens when you go somewhere where there is nothing to do, when even the ratty old pen you are writing with forces to you to think a little slower? A little while back, I visited my retreat in New Hampshire. The pond is so clear there that you can see the fish ambling about. The pine trees are tall, and sprinkle fragrance on my bare shoulders. The rooms are quiet with one hundred years of solitude. There is nothing to do, but be.
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Listening to God
Most of my life I’ve been chatting with God. Sometimes through prayer, sometimes frantic begging, but always somehow. I never much expected God to talk back, and if she did I was pretty sure it would be like in that scene in the Ten Commandments where God speaks in that booming voice that sounds like James Earl Jones, except that maybe it would sound more like Tina Turner. Surely if God said something to me it would be a calling or a vocation, something erring on the dramatic.
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Making Deals with God
Did you ever make a deal with God? Maybe you were scared that the electricity would be turned off, or maybe you didn't know where your child was, or maybe you yourself were sick, so sick that you thought you might die. In my way of thinking, deals (God if you'll fix this I'll do such and such), or things like petitionary prayers (Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz) aren't much part of the deal. These things don't work because Spirit is part of us as human beings, intrinsic not separate. It's a sort of pantheism, where God is in me, you and in all living things. It's also why I don't kill spiders, but that's another story.
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A Gift From The Heart
Last week my friend Brian gave me a ride on the tricycle he had built, not the little red bicycle kind, the motorcycle kind. This was no ordinary tricycle though. Instead of having the two big wheels in back, he constructed them in front, making the thing look extraordinary indeed. He had spent weeks, maybe months building it, a somethingcycle that was transportation, art, and spiritual expression all rolled up into one.
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God on the Job
I try to bring a spiritual sensibility with me wherever I go, but work seems to be the last holdout, the last taboo place. Maybe my co-workers buy that "religion is the opiate of the masses" stuff which would explain that raised eyebrow look I sometimes get. They assume that those of us on a spiritual path must be less intelligent, less competent, and maybe even slightly doped up. Well, I’m as awake as I’ve ever been and I resent the implication. To make matters even more dicey, I invite God into my workplace whenever possible. After all, it’s God that got me here.
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Good Parking Karma and Other Magical Things
A couple of years ago my friend Lida told me that she could "image" parking spaces, and that because she could do this, she pretty much always had a spot. She explained that while she was driving somewhere, she'd see the parking space in her mind, one that was of course not only in existence but also right next to where she wanted to go. I didn't much buy the whole imaging thing, but then Lida was no airy fairy new ager - and most importantly, she insisted it worked. So, I listened and asked lot of questions. When I was done grilling her, I tried it. And… yes, I got my parking spaces. But I just couldn't discount coincidence and the fact that I live in Vermont where spaces are, mostly, plentiful. So I kept trying, and I kept finding the parking spaces.
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The Sublime Sweetness of Vermont Tomatoes and what my Dad had to do with all that.
Just outside my hometown of Hinesburg is a farmstand that sells organic tomatoes, so ripe and red that I'm bound to eat one before I even get home. They drip all over but I don't care; they are a sublime expression of summer, meant to be eaten warm from a sultry Vermont sun. I have this appreciation for tomatoes because my father grew them when he lived at Pendle Hill, a Quaker center for study and contemplation in Pennsylvania. So really this story begins when my own Vermont tomatoes were just a twinkle in that farmer's eye.
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No One's Epitaph Reads: "She Got a Lot of Work Done!"
Like most Americans, especially those of us whose parents survived the depression, I have grown up believing that there is Not Enough. Not enough food. Not enough money. Not enough to go around. My mother told stories about kids in faraway places who didn't have enough to eat. Stories about saving buttons in the button tin. Stories about turning the lights off and the heat down and double-checking the grocery store receipt. And it may be that having never lived in a real depression, I cannot understand what it's like to stand in a soup line, or huddle by the oven for the heat.
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