Today is the officially observed National Day of Prayer in the U.S.I was raised in the Evangelical United Brethren Church in the 1950s and early 60s. I don't remember much about the efforts that were made to teach me and other children how to pray. But, what I do remember is that I was taught how to talk AT G!D [this is the way Jewish Renewal folks use the name of the Almighty]. No one taught me how to LISTEN.
Listening is a critically important part of prayer no matter what our religious affiliation.
But what does it mean to listen during prayer? It certainly means more than just using our ears to hear a voice out of thin air.
It seems clear to me that in Christian scriptures, the Jewish Bible and other sacred books, God "speaks" to people through dreams, coincidences, synchronicities, events, books, films, and a whole range of natural phenomena.
We just need to learn to pay attention and to try decipher (perhaps with the aid of a spiritual advisor) what G!D's expressions mean.
There will be good news and bad, invitations, jokes, and certainly warnings.
If nothing else, we need to pay attention to the warnings, to the "writing on the wall" about the need to eliminate nuclear weapons, get the homeless off our streets, feed the hungry and stop poisoning our environment.
As surfers say in their charmingly Quixotic language, "We don't need a swami to tell us we're about to go over a cliff."
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