Quick backstory/exposition: After getting in to Colgate and realizing I had to defer enrollment for a semester, the opportunity arose for me to audit a class. I picked Thurman, King & Life of the Spirit. This class will explore the writings of Howard Thurman and Martin Luther King Jr and their spiritual journeys.

I realize this blog started out as a journey in to ministry, but I also will be using it as a blog for my spiritual journey. One could argue they are one and the same I suppose.I don't promise that these blogs will make sense. I may ramble. I may go off on a tangent. I may contradict myself. But this is a way to purge what's going on and to share with those of you reading this what this journey is like.  Everyone's journey is different, but this is mine. I'm realizing that going in to seminary is going to raise more questions than it answers, but I'm also realizing that is an incredibly good thing. A point made by my professor last night in class, and one I had heard before most recently when Dr. McMickle preached at the first chapel service I attended at Colgate, is that if we claim to understand God completely and make him as small as us, then aren't we doing Him a disservice? Basically, if I feel 100% confident in my faith and beliefs then maybe I'm making it too easy for myself. But that's a blog for another day.

Let me get back to class and one poins it's got mulling around in my head today. I had never heard of Howard Thurman, if I must be honest. So when I did the reading for this week it was with no prior knowledge or preconceived notions of this man and what he did. During the discussion in class we talked about prayer. Thurman talks a lot about preparing ourselves for prayer and finding a quiet center, whenever and wherever that may be for you individually. When he gets in to intercessory prayer and how we pray for our loved ones because we have to out of our love for them and our love for God, it all gave me pause. As I was getting ready for bed last night I started to wonder: Am I praying wrong? I tend to pray in the shower as I'm getting ready in the morning and at night as I lay down to go to sleep. These are the two times of day where I'm not focused so much on the rest of the day or distracted by the TV or a book, but I don't do much more preparation than that. I just sort of start talking. I wonder what it would be like if I took a little more time to mentally and spiritually prepare myself for a conversation with God? How much closer would I feel? And then I got a little embarrassed when I realized a lot of my praying is selfish. Clarity in my life, or being shown what sort of path I should be taking, that sort of thing. Don't get me wrong, when someone close to me needs it I do pray for them. But I find it almost easy to let it go after a few days, not because I don't feel they need it, but because I forget and I let myself get in the way. I guess it sort of stems back to that first part about preparing myself. I don't have a solution nor am I really looking for one. I just wanted to share that this is something I am now struggling with. Let me share here the passage about intercessory prayer that has really been a bit of a wake-up call for me. For my purposes it can be found in the book Howard Thurman: Essential Writings edited by Luther Smith, Jr. on page 58:

"The question of the effectiveness of intercessory prayer does not belong in the experience of the man who prays for his friend-- it is his care that is poured out when he is most conscious of being cared for himself. When the hunger for God becomes articulate in a man so that it is one with his initial experience of God, it is the most natural thing in the world to share whatever his concerns may be. A man prays for loved ones because he has to, not merely because his prayer may accomplish something beyond this."

I've been working this past year to build a much more personal relationship with God, and particularly Him in the form of Jesus. This has sort of shown me I have a ways to go, but it has also shown me one of the not-so-simple simple steps I  can take. I want to try to look at praying as a conversation, as if Jesus and I were just sitting on the couch enjoying some wine and hanging out like friends. I've always approached it as more of a heirarchy relationship, almost like He's my boss and it's time for a weekly review of my job performance and He's asking me "What could I be doing for you?" So this is my challenge to myself: rethink how I pray. Try a different approach. See what happens.