The Problem with Prayer
Let’s Talk Prayer
So my mother is sick- and I’m not talking cough cough here’s some Robitussin and some Campbell soup. I’m talking frequent visits to the hospital, can’t leave the house, eats food from a blender kind of sick. The kind of sick that cashiers at Walgreens ask you for money to help find the cure. Yeah, that kind of sick. She no longer leaves the house aside from doctor’s visits or hospital visits and can no longer take care of her herself or her household. Now tonight, I had about fourteen people come to my mother’s house for an hour and a half long prayer session. They all marched in like the Christian soldiers they are and started praying immediately. This was that kind of prayer that vibrates through the house: voices carrying upstairs into the attic and straight out of the roof as they ascend to heaven.
Now, don’t get me wrong, although I don’t identify as a Christian, I am definitely a lover and believer of God and all the amazing wonderful Blessings that God brings. That being said, I have an issue with prayer. Here are FOURTEEN people standing in my kitchen: arms spread wide, lifting my mother, her illness, and our whole family in prayer. Fourteen people who walked through this door and greeted her, not as a stranger but as a friend, a co worker, a neighbor. Fourteen people who knew my mother from various locations, before she got sick. Yet, the only time I see any of these people are on nights like tonight when they lift her up in prayer for an hour and a half and head on on their merry ways saying “God bless you and all the people that help to care for you.”
The Problem with Prayer Lies in This
The problem with prayer is that whole “I’m praying for you/let me come pray for you” bit. Not because people are physically doing the prayer, not because of who they are praying to, and not even because I have fourteen people crowding my kitchen at 8pm.
The problem I have is that this is ALL people do.
When you are sick, when you are well, when things go wrong, people pray. And let me tell you: prayer is the bees knees because God is the bees knees (…and the rest of the body. Not that God is a bee I’m just saying God is awesome) but that’s not the only thing in our wheelhouse to do. Whether you believe in my God or your God when you are praying you are praying to good. You are channeling your version of good epitomized and asking that good to reign down blessings on you or whomever you are praying for. Now very RARELY do people pray and act. My God comes from the Christian Bible and in this Bible there are like a gazillion examples of people who are blessed by God. Moses with the freeing of the Israelites, David with the killing of Goliath, Rachel in finally getting pregnant- the list goes on and on. But in these Biblical examples and all the other ones, these people don’t just pray they fucking DO. They got down and dirty and did shit to help their situations or to help the people that they wanted God to bless. Could you imagine where the Israelites would have been if Moses stayed in his fucking farm land when he saw that bush burning and just prayed?
But he didn’t, he got up and did something.
Back to my house. Here, I have fourteen people in my house who see the condition that my mother is in and not a one has taken her to a doctors visit, cooked her a meal, done her hair, even purchased her a pen from the dollar store. Nothing but a prayer.
With Prayer There Must Be Action
Don’t sit around just praying for yourself. And don’t you dare get in your car travel all the way to someone’s house just to pray. Prayer is a connection to good. It is you asking the greatest power of good to aid in a situation. And that greatest power of good can be telling you, hey- I want YOU to be the one to help! That power of good can be out there delegating and has decided that it wants YOU to use whatever tool you have to solve the problem. Moses was a great leader so when he prayed for the safety and well being of the Israelites he got off his ass and helped lead them to safety.
I’m not saying all Christians and people who pray should be it here parting Red Seas and making commandments but shit, action speaks louder than words! When you ask ANYONE for something you still gotta do shit. You can’t ask the guy at the bank for a loan and not have a plan of how you’re gunna give him his money back. You can’t ask for a cuter hairstyle without going to the salon or buying the hair dye from Hair Stop. No matter what you are asking of someone you still have to have SOME action behind the ask. Sooooo why do some of us think it’s okay to go to the source of all things good and just…ask? No action-not a step!
All I’m saying is, if you’re going through it, do your prayer but also, do something else. It doesn’t take much to go to the grocery store or help someone mail a letter. The littlest things make a huge difference.
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Should we treat ourselves like we treat our favorite food?
Should we treat ourselves like we treat our favorite food?
Yes.
And here’s why:
So I’m sitting at home in my underwear munching on chocolate covered almonds after a very odd date. I don’t even know if I can call it a date…it was more like, an encounter. So I met this loser on OKCupid and he was all let’s go out, let’s go out, blah blah blah. Day of (today) he’s like, we’ll grab something to eat around me. So I park the car a few blocks away from his location and go to meet him there. We meet and I say, where are we headed? He says, let’s walk.
So we proceed to walk….a silent(ish), awkward(ish) walk…in the direction of my car. “Oh we’re not going to get coffee or something?” I ask. “Yeah, yeah” he says as we get closer to my car. He then “gets a call” where he tells the individual on the other line that he will be “home soon.” So I say “Alright” and he says “have a nice day!” And he heads on off.
This man met up with me. To drop me off. At my car.
Now as I sat in my vehicle sucking on my vape all I could think was, what the fuck was that?! So I start going down a list of all the possible things that could be wrong with me that he could have witnessed in that fifteen minute encounter to have warranted such an abrupt end.
Then it hits me: I (and you-we) should treat ourselves the way we treat our favorite food.
So one of my favorite foods are these yummy chocolate covered almonds I just devoured. Let’s say you offer these almonds to a friend: you want to share this delightful treat with someone else. This person says “I don’t like em” naturally your reaction is surprise: “what that’s crazy, these are the best!” You insist. “Nah, not a fan.” Your friend replies. So, you leave it at that. “Your loss” you shrug and continue to eat that yummy snack.
Now, let’s say you’re like me and always think you’re right. You’re gunna argue with this person “hey man, chocolate covered almonds are the best and here’s all the reasons why. What makes you not like them?!” you ask. “They’re too chocolatey or they’re too almondy or I don’t like sweets” your buddy responds. And with that, you shrug your shoulders and keep it moving. (We’re gunna call your friend Bob)
Your love for chocolate covered almonds didn’t decrease because Bob said he didn’t like them. You didn’t suddenly hate how chocolatey the almonds were because bitch ass Bob had a problem with them. You like how chocolatey it is. It’s not “too chocolatey ” it’s just right. And you didn’t try to make the almonds less chocolatey to get Bob to like them. You didn’t get them to be less sweet or less almondy you just counted it to Bob’s loss.
And you know what else you didn’t do? You didn’t stop offering it to those you wanted to try it just because Bob didn’t like it.
So why do we do it to ourselves?
Why is it that when we find out someone doesn’t like our hair suddenly we feel weird about our hair?
Why is it that if someone comments on our body suddenly we are considering altering our bodies?
Why is it that when one person rejects us we decide , you know what, I’m not even gonna bother any more.
Why the hell do we keep trying to feed the Bobs of the world our fucking nuts?!
We need to treat ourselves like we treat our favorite food. Have conviction in the things that make us awesome. Believe that we are awesome and stay believing it no matter what anyone else thinks.
Because just like our favorite food we will find that person that says omg I love chocolate covered almonds.
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High Thoughts
The Power of Our Minds
I think it’s important for us to start off by discussing the power of our mind.
So I don’t know how tv savvy you are but there’s this old Simpsons episode and although I’m a TV guru I can’t for the life of me remember which episode this is from. But anyway, somehow we end up in Lisa’s mind and she’s having this conversation with herselves. And no, that’s not a typo-like for instance writing be instead of been- she was actually having a conversation with multiple Lisas. I believe in this episode the different Lisas were representative of the ID, the Ego and the Super Ego, a Freudian model of the psych. This model basically showcases how there are three versions of you: the you who wants to just do whatever whenever, the you who is organized and thinks realistically, and the you who focuses on the good vs the bad and trying to get you to do good. Now I got my definitions from a skim of Wikipedia so please go there if you’re expecting this to be an in-depth explanation of Freud’s theory. I’m out here using that as a jumping off point.
I think there’s more than just three versions of us: three Lisas of the brain arguing over what decision real life Lisa is going to make. I think that there’s at least five or six versions of us that live up in our mind waiting for their time in the sun. Now, I’m not talking United States of Tara where one version of us takes over our whole body but I’m talking more of a dinner party. Yes here comes another analogy (high me loves these things).
The Dinner Party
Ok so imagine you’re at a dinner party filled with different versions of you: there’s the critical you, the angry you, the lonely you, the happy you, the horny you, and all of the other dwarves. Now just like at a real dinner party there’s going to those one or two people that love to talk and when you give them enough attention, they will take over the whole conversation not leaving anyone room to speak.
So here you are at your dinner party with these different versions of you. Like any dinner party, it’s awkward at first: everyone is just acquaintances, their only real connection being you. So they smile awkwardly at each other, making small talk, waiting for the waiter to finally bring those bread sticks he promised fifteen minutes ago. It’s up to you to break the ice and to start the conversation. So you turn to one of those versions: let’s say the critical you, and Critical You is far from nice. You guys talk and as you talk and give Critical You attention, they take up more and more airtime to the point where you forget the other players are there. Happy You tries to interject: “hey, that’s harsh! You’re great, don’t listen to them!” But it’s too late because you’ve been listening to Critical You for so long that that’s the only voice you can really hear.
Now in actuality the point of this dinner party is so that all voices get equal airtime and can influence you in a way that will only be positive and growth driven but because you are giving Critical You or Emotional You or Horny You more airtime, the rest kind of dwindle away and when you have your next dinner party, maybe Introspective You doesn’t show up, you never pay them much mind anyway. Then Political You “can’t find a baby sitter” and Confident You is “working late” and before you know it, your latest dinner party has become an intimate dinner for two: for you and Critical You-how lovely.
Essentially, we feed into our own thoughts. You think you’re not good enough because you’re only listening to the version of you who thinks you’re not good enough. Maybe this version of you spent a lot of time hanging out with your parents and seventh grade bully so their opinion is warped so technically you shouldn’t be listening to them anyway, but here you are.
What does this have to do with being high?
So in our introduction to the site we discuss how conversations can go to different levels and how being high takes you through these levels quicker and before you know it you’re on a level where you’re discussing your place in this multi-verse.
These conversations can be had with others but they start with yourself. If you’re having a conversation with yourself while high and going through the levels it definitely steers the conversation a certain way and effects if you even make it to in depth levels. If you’re having a conversation with Horny You and you ask them, why am I on this earth? They’re going to say, to procreate! God never intended for man to be tied down let’s give Him what he wanted and go fuck. And just like that you’re that person who goes around saying, “I get so horny when I’m high”
Of course you get horny when you’re high if y’all have a table for two at the restaurant! It’s the only voice you’re hearing and you won’t make it far with them.
Tip for the future:
At your next dinner party (whether it’s high or sober), turn to someone you haven’t heard from in a while and say what’s up. If you look around and you’re at a table for two, quietly excuse yourself and slip out the back door, texting Happy You to see how they’ve been.