Hello God…It's M
Over the years I have been known to pray to God. It is usually late at night. It is usually in the toilet when I am by myself, or in bed. It is very rarely in a Church. It has usually been a tough sort of a day where I have thrown my arms up in the air and thought "I have had enough!" But after reading a fantastic and fascinating book entitled "eat, pray, love - One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia" by Elizabeth Gilbert, which I was stunned to have received for my birthday by a very special friend (and yes you are) I have realised that the words that come out of my mouth, what I think they mean in my head, and what they could be interpreted as are completely different things.
And before I get into the specifics I want to clarify what I mean by God. The following is an excerpt taken from "eat, pray, love" and is entirely the authors words. How she managed to take them from my head and put them on paper I still don't know but they capture what I feel about God perfectly.
And before you think this book is all about God, it isn't. It's got a lot to do with sex and gelato too :)
So now I realise that there is no way I can colour up my prayers, no beautiful strings of words that I can use that changes the core message I am giving. And they are as follows:
Dear God. If you can just make me a millionaire when I wake up in the morning, I promise I will finally get around to doing that budget and promise not to screw up all my money as I have done in the 38 years that have already passed in my life.
Dear God. If you can just make me skinny when I wake up in the morning, I promise that I will maintain this new temple of loveliness by eating healthily, exercising properly, partaking of essential nutrients, and ensuring I get enough sleep and sanity to carry this through.
Dear God. If you can just see your way clear to making me the most knowledgable being on Earth so that any job I may want, or any question I may be asked, I will know the correct answer in order to get what I want.
Yep, pretty shallow aren't they.
But now I have realised that my shrug of my shoulders in the morning when yet again I woke up to find nothing had changed was just a cop out because I was receiving the answers loud and clear each day. The answers went a little like this.
Dear M, If you construct a budget, live within your means, and continue looking for ways to improve your life, and the life of your family, POW, you will wake up one morning with riches beyond your wildest dreams.
Dear M, If you eat healthily, exercise properly, partake of essential nutrients, and ensure you get enough sleep and sanity to carry this through, POW, you will wake up one morning in a body that is healthy and loveliness in all its glory.
Dear M, In order to attain knowledge to gain "what you want" you first need to know what it is you want.
Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. LOL..
It means I had the answers inside me all along. I have the ability to have my prayers answered, or my goals reached. Because really all my prayers are, are a spoken version of my goals said in a different context. I was asking someone else to achieve my goals for me. I was asking someone else to take all the responsibility away from me. I was trying to take the easy way out. Ask someone to do something - blame them when it doesn't happen.
I know I have taken huge steps to address my prayers/goals. I have started to understand that I need to take the reigns of my life in my own hands and see how far I can go.
And I plan to go far :D
P.S. If you want to know all about the sex and gelato part of the book, I highly recommend you check the book out at the library. Mmmmm gelato….
*******************************************
And in other news:
Jay Kay has attacked her 'letter' she was given and it is brilliant. With all the Running she is doing she definitely has the RRRR's to show for it.
Big hugs to Rae who has miscarried her first baby at 10 weeks. I am a bit late with the news but send out my sincerest condolences for her loss :(
I had a great weekend in Adelaide. It rained a lot so didn't get out for my beach walks but did walk for a few hours around their new IKEA store, and a few more hours around the Royal Adelaide Show. Spent great time just lazing about with the folks and my family and reading (hence the post above). It was great and I can't wait to go back again in November.
Thank you to all you lovely people who sent me cards and good wishes for my birthday. I am still feeling special :)
And a big well done to everyone who is maintaining, losing, fighting to minimise the gains. You guys are sensational and you provide me with new motivations each and every day, in very different ways. And I can see that with Spring now upon us the levels of motivation are starting to climb again. Whooo Hoooo. Now if it will only stop raining in Sydney long enough for me to get outside LOL.
And before I get into the specifics I want to clarify what I mean by God. The following is an excerpt taken from "eat, pray, love" and is entirely the authors words. How she managed to take them from my head and put them on paper I still don't know but they capture what I feel about God perfectly.
"Now, this was a first for me. And since this is the first time I have introduced that loaded word - GOD - into my book, and since this is a word which will appear many times again throughout these pages, it seems only fair that I pause here for a moment to explain exactly what I mean when I say that word, just so people can decide right away how offended they need to get.
Saving for later the argument about whether God exists at all (no - here's a better idea: let's skip that argument completely), let me first explain why I use the word God, when I could just as easily use the words Jehovah, Allah, Shiva, Brahma, Vishnu or Zeus. Alternatively, I could call God "That," which is how the ancient Sanskrit scriptures say it, and which I think comes close to the all-inclusive and unspeakable entity I have sometimes experienced. But that "That" feels impersonal to me - a thing, not a being - and I myself cannot pray to a That. I need a proper name, in order to fully sense a personal attendance. For this reason, when I pray, I do not address my prayers to The Universe, The Great Void, The Force, The Supreme Self, The Whole, The Creator, The Light, The Higher Power, or even the most poetic manifestation of God's name, taken, I believe, from the Gnostic gospels: "The Shadow of the Turning."
I have nothing against these terms. I feel they are all equal because they are all equally adequate and inadequate descriptions of the indescribable. But we each do need a functional name for this indescribability, and "God" is the name that feels the most warm to me, so that's what I use. I should also confess that I generally refer to God as "Him", which doesn't bother me because, to my mind, it's just a convenient personalising pronoun, not a precise anatomical description or a cause for revolution.
Of course, I don't mind if people call God "Her", and I understand the urge to do so. Again - to me, these are both equal terms, equally adequate and inadequate. Though I do think the capitalisation of either pronoun is a nice touch, a small politeness in the presence of the devine."(eat, love, pray - Elizabeth Gilbert, p13)
And before you think this book is all about God, it isn't. It's got a lot to do with sex and gelato too :)
So now I realise that there is no way I can colour up my prayers, no beautiful strings of words that I can use that changes the core message I am giving. And they are as follows:
Dear God. If you can just make me a millionaire when I wake up in the morning, I promise I will finally get around to doing that budget and promise not to screw up all my money as I have done in the 38 years that have already passed in my life.
Dear God. If you can just make me skinny when I wake up in the morning, I promise that I will maintain this new temple of loveliness by eating healthily, exercising properly, partaking of essential nutrients, and ensuring I get enough sleep and sanity to carry this through.
Dear God. If you can just see your way clear to making me the most knowledgable being on Earth so that any job I may want, or any question I may be asked, I will know the correct answer in order to get what I want.
Yep, pretty shallow aren't they.
But now I have realised that my shrug of my shoulders in the morning when yet again I woke up to find nothing had changed was just a cop out because I was receiving the answers loud and clear each day. The answers went a little like this.
Dear M, If you construct a budget, live within your means, and continue looking for ways to improve your life, and the life of your family, POW, you will wake up one morning with riches beyond your wildest dreams.
Dear M, If you eat healthily, exercise properly, partake of essential nutrients, and ensure you get enough sleep and sanity to carry this through, POW, you will wake up one morning in a body that is healthy and loveliness in all its glory.
Dear M, In order to attain knowledge to gain "what you want" you first need to know what it is you want.
Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. LOL..
It means I had the answers inside me all along. I have the ability to have my prayers answered, or my goals reached. Because really all my prayers are, are a spoken version of my goals said in a different context. I was asking someone else to achieve my goals for me. I was asking someone else to take all the responsibility away from me. I was trying to take the easy way out. Ask someone to do something - blame them when it doesn't happen.
I know I have taken huge steps to address my prayers/goals. I have started to understand that I need to take the reigns of my life in my own hands and see how far I can go.
And I plan to go far :D
P.S. If you want to know all about the sex and gelato part of the book, I highly recommend you check the book out at the library. Mmmmm gelato….
*******************************************
And in other news:
Jay Kay has attacked her 'letter' she was given and it is brilliant. With all the Running she is doing she definitely has the RRRR's to show for it.
Big hugs to Rae who has miscarried her first baby at 10 weeks. I am a bit late with the news but send out my sincerest condolences for her loss :(
I had a great weekend in Adelaide. It rained a lot so didn't get out for my beach walks but did walk for a few hours around their new IKEA store, and a few more hours around the Royal Adelaide Show. Spent great time just lazing about with the folks and my family and reading (hence the post above). It was great and I can't wait to go back again in November.
Thank you to all you lovely people who sent me cards and good wishes for my birthday. I am still feeling special :)
And a big well done to everyone who is maintaining, losing, fighting to minimise the gains. You guys are sensational and you provide me with new motivations each and every day, in very different ways. And I can see that with Spring now upon us the levels of motivation are starting to climb again. Whooo Hoooo. Now if it will only stop raining in Sydney long enough for me to get outside LOL.
