Praying

IF THERE IS ANY BENEFIT TO PRAYING, it is emotional, the psychological fruit of self expression, of experiencing the sublime, of getting it off your chest, as it were. The notion that an anthropomorphic deity somewhere beyond the sky listens and responds is dubious at best, defies basic common sense. And yet, I love to pray, alone, or aloud in a group. Unlike most religious people, I don't need to delude myself that an omnipotent being hears and welcomes attempts to influence his or her behavior. I never make requests when I pray; if I'm wrong, and god is a discreet entity, asking for favors to me seems presumptuous and pretentious. God can decide my fate and the fate of the universe without any supplication from me, and I must trust that he or she will. It is quite enough for me to give thanks, and I, like most of us, have a great deal for which to be thankful. At our local senior center I am often called upon to render the daily prayer before lunch; I seem to have a certain flair for it, and the folks seems to like my style, for which I am grateful. I inject a lot of passion into my prayers, all of it sincere. I keep it short, but, I hope, rife with grateful intent. The other seniors probably assume when they hear me that I, like they, am a devout Christian,, which is far from the truth. The truth is that my religious role models are Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein,, whom most people probably don't associate with religion. Jefferson was a deist, a popular form of religiosity in eighteenth century Europe and America, who sometimes described himself as a "primitive Christian", by which he meant that he admired Jesus, and his teachings, but eschewed the miraculous. Jefferson was a man of science, an empiricist. He said: "I am a sect unto myself, as far as I know." Einstein's religiosity consisted in what he called "humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit" which he intuited from his 'weak and transitory understanding comprehension" of nature, as he put it. When I pray, I never make any references to being 'saved", or to the blood of Christ. To me, such notions seems primitive and barbaric. Saved from what? from a set of circumstances ordained by the infinite power and infinite choices of the God who created everything? No, the Judeo Christian God is not my God. To me, the biblical God is a psychopathic, sadistic serial killer and mass murderer. That became apparent to me from reading the Bible. I pray to the infinitely superior spirit which manifests in nature, does not judge creatures of its own creation, nor condemns any of them to an eternity of torment, and for which human morality is irrelevant. An infinitely superior spirt far beyond my comprehension, but not my love and admiration. An infinitely superior spirit which created cosmic and planetary conditions conducive to my potential for a fulfilling life, if I choose to live it fully. Whatever other people think I am praying to is quite beyond my ability to control, and definitely not my concern.