Welcome to Responding with Prayer,
An opportunity to respond to the complex everyday experiences that lift us up and bring us down.
My name is Jess.
I have struggled with attending to prayer,
And I hope this little offering brings you closer to the Creator.
Today's meditation is on dysfunctional and culturated messages.
Let's start by taking five big breaths.
Deep breathing has been studied and found to change how we engage stress and situations.
This is good for slowing down,
Preparing for prayer,
But also a good practice for all kinds of situations we find ourselves in.
So just feel your body breathe for one whole minute.
Deep breathing has been studied and found to change how we engage stress and situations.
That was 60 seconds.
If your mind went to other places just now or happens throughout this time,
That's okay.
It's natural.
You're still here,
So let's move on.
Take one moment and identify a person or situation you are grateful for as you do this.
Take a moment and out loud or in your head,
Express that gratitude towards God.
All of us are lied to by culturated messages of false societal expectations.
Not man enough,
Pretty enough,
Smart enough,
White enough,
And so on.
There are fixed attributes that are supposed to accompany our identity that can lie to us and weigh us down.
Society lifts certain types of people at the expense of others.
Many people face the culture clash of values as they experience Western culture.
Living in this world with these messages can have mental and spiritual stress.
So if you're able,
Put your arms out and turn your palms up in a posture of release toward the Creator.
Our bodies are an important part of prayer.
The Christian scriptures tell us of a very practical spiritual opportunity.
Cast your cares towards the divine.
So imagine you wrote the messages you are getting and how they make you feel on the palms of your hands as an act of submission.
What words would be there?
What words would be there?
So God,
We place into your hands these things on our hands.
We give to you these lies,
These inculturated dysfunctional messages,
And their impact on our lives.
A lot of meditation teaches the necessary ability to release.
Let's also focus on what healthy things we put into that space of release.
If we are releasing the cares of these lies,
What are we needing to take on?
As you close your hands,
What accompanying things do you need to be as you deal with these messages in your life?
How about God's radical love and acceptance?
How about self-love and acceptance?
How about the strength and courage to be yourself?
These dysfunctional messages keep us from our purpose because it focuses us on being someone we were not created to be and keeping us from our core identity of being in the image of God.
So in prayer,
We slow down and we make commitments to our core foundations.
Spend a minute expressing to God how these messages are impacting your life and what freedoms you want to live into.
So so God,
We accept the freedom that comes with submission to you.
We often fight against the very abundant life that you have for us.
So we accept the grace of contentment,
Of being loved,
Our unique identity just as we sit here.
Now taking this time today did not change these dysfunctional and culturated messages that continue to come our way.
It may have changed your orientation towards them today.
You may need to take some greater steps to address these lies in your life,
But the great spiritual writers in the Christian tradition often maintained that prayer's greatest gift is not that it suddenly changes our situations,
But that it often changes us.
But that it often changes us.
Amen.
So so so so so
