Where moth and rust destroy...

Thank you for the compliment and for the blessings, Rosa. I agree, when we are broken and vulnerable our walls do "become thinner" and we are able to take in and listen more to the Creator's comforts and commands.

And yes, let us all keep searching and sharing as we, as you put it, "battle our internal wars."

May all of you have a blessed and fruitful New Year. ❤️

Mark-Alexis, Thank you for your words filled with genuine faith and love. I really like the following of your words

"May we all be filled and surrounded with the awareness of our Creator, and of the Holy Spirit that is within and around us all." Yes, if our awareness is in God in all God's manifestations, we will walk the early moments of the New Year with the best suit we can ever wear ♥ I do aim for that too!

"The Lord was also instructing us, in his gentle way, to become poor in spirit so as to become blessed, too."

" It has been during pivotal moments when I have been at my most broken and vulnerable that I have felt You most fully and deeply." I certainly have experienced that too. Perhaps when we are feeling broken, defective and hurting, our inner walls become thinner for us to listen the Divine in and around us.

"Hover over me tonight, Creator, and hover over all of Your children – those who know You and those who do not." We are all God's children ♥

Mark-Alexis, may the end of this challenging year and the beginning of an uncertain one, bless you and inspire you to keep on writing and sharing. May we all keep searching for the divine as we battle our internal wars.

Thank you for your inspiring words. There are a treasure to read.

Blessed New Year for all of us.

I want to share this prayer prior to the New Year. May we all be filled and surrounded with the awareness of our Creator, and of the Holy Spirit that is within and around us all. ❤️

Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit

Creator, I realize that when the Lord declared, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” he was advising us that those who have emptied, lowered, and humbled themselves in thought, feeling, intention, word, and deed, have been made holy and sacred to You. The Lord was also instructing us, in his gentle way, to become poor in spirit so as to become blessed, too. This realization comforts, challenges, and frightens me. “For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven,” promised the Lord.

The Kingdom of Heaven lies within us, as the Lord taught – just as much as we lie within You – and the road that leads to it is the “narrow path” the Lord also spoke of. It seems as if journeying on this “narrow path” requires of us a narrowing of our own needs, desires, and preoccupations; a narrowing of our own path so that it may align with the true path. In fact, all of the major world religions – Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism – seem to lead or point to this narrow path of purgation and purification; it is as inevitable as death. Great measures of silence, stillness, and solitude seem to constitute a latency requisite for great spiritual growth and for true intimacy with You. Is it, perhaps, because You dwell in silence, stillness, and solitude in all of Your vast mystery and greatness?

I must admit, as my spirit – Your Spirit – beckons me forth and within, my soul sometimes clamors to distract and hold me back, fearing dissolution. And yet, I know a dissolving of the harsher, more carnal and superficial aspects of myself is precisely what needs to happen in order that I may enter into full communion with You. It has been during pivotal moments when I have been at my most broken and vulnerable that I have felt You most fully and deeply. You have astonished me with the rapidity with which You have come to my rescue, comforting and reinvigorating me, and overwhelming me with grace.

Creator, You do hover over and dwell within those who are emptied, lowered, and humbled, don’t You? The more we empty, lower, and humble ourselves for You, the more You fill, lift, and exalt us. You are both gentle and powerful, subtle and awesome, personal and impersonal.

Hover over me tonight, Creator, and hover over all of Your children – those who know You and those who do not. Fill and surround us all with the awareness of your Presence, which is more constant and real than gravity, air, and the stars. Amen.

Thank you for the kind words, Rosa. And yes, communing with God is indeed "magnificent." I think this year, which has been dominated by the pandemic and political chaos, has been a trying and testing time for all of us. The more I seek refuge in communion with the Creator, the more I am stilled, assured, strengthened, and buoyed.

I hope you are doing well during these times, and that the Presence of God fills and surrounds you with faith, hope, and love. ❤️

Mark-Alexis ♥ indeed beautiful and deep writings that come with the power of the hand that writes guided from within, and from a heart that has lived through the ups and downs of life, and found a core center that beats with the heart.

Out of the pain and frustration that at points peaks by some of your words, you have found the courage to seek, to believe, to feel, to be in whatever state of vulnerability one may find oneself in. You have walked towards God in you, and God has met you in all your greatness and weaknesses. Isn't it magnificent?

I especially like these sentences from your last two writings

Nov 20, " it is as if You grace us with the sight, hearing, and ability to take notice of the fact that You have been here all along."

"You sort of stay in the background and do not make Yourself known unless sought. You provide us with ample time and space to both search for and discover You. "

"Thank you, thank you, thank you for the mercy You constantly bestow upon me, and for making me evermore aware of Your Presence within and around me. I love you. Amen."

Samsara. "Still, how do I translate this knowing of Your existence to others? "

"I pray that You hover over those who are alone, abandoned, anguished, angry, and addicted, and that You fill them with faith, hope, and love, and with Your sacred peace and light. Most of all, I pray that You fill others with the knowledge of how profoundly intimate You can be, if sought, with each and every one of us. Amen."

Keep writing ♥ Blessings

You're welcome, Rosa. Here are two prayers I wrote not too long ago:

November 20, 2020

Awareness

Creator, my faith in and perception of You have deepened, and I now find myself struggling to articulate how it is that I actually know that You are within and around me at all times. Earlier this evening while taking a brisk walk, I felt the air around me, along with my own body, grow charged with Your Presence again. At the risk of sounding irreverent, I must admit, when this happens it feels similar to one of the several “highs” I used to chase when I was in active addiction, but infinitely more expansive and without the darkness and heaviness that accompanied those states of inebriation.

I sometimes ask myself if I am imagining this sensation but I know with a knowing that surpasses all logic and understanding that You are, in fact, here. How could You not be? The sense of grace and gratitude that washes over me in those moments feels sacred and transcendent, and I often recall the words of various saints and mystics who articulated how you swept into their environment, into their very being, and overwhelmed them. Although I agree with their assertions about You, I am increasingly realizing that You do not “drop in” on us as much as You, as I noted above, make Yourself known, charging us and the atmosphere around us with Your Presence. Better yet, it is as if You grace us with the sight, hearing, and ability to take notice of the fact that You have been here all along.

Yours is the power that forms, moves, and governs the planets and galaxies – the entire cosmos – and Yours is also the power that forms, moves, and governs our hearts, our lungs, our very cells and every single infinitesimal structure, from the atom to the quark, thereafter. However, I do not want to claim Pantheism, for You both encompass and are beyond us. (You are more than the sum of our bodies and the cosmos and everything created, both visible and invisible. You are more than an ocean containing drops of water.) You are intelligent, generous, loving, humble yet unknowable in the traditional sense. (It is at this point that words both escape me and are not enough to contain You; nothing is.)

I have come to realize that prayer is about awareness; becoming aware of You and Your constant and consistent Presence. This is why I say that You are humble: though always here and there and everywhere, You sort of stay in the background and do not make Yourself known unless sought. You provide us with ample time and space to both search for and discover You. As I write this right now, I feel You again and suddenly, I feel the yearning one feels when around a loved one: I want to hold and cherish You and never let You go. It is a feeling beyond love, really, and more overwhelming. I can understand how several mystics described encounters with You as being “in ecstasy.”

As I pray to You tonight, I ask that You keep me aware of Your ceaseless Presence, which permeates everything and yet lies above and beyond all that there is. You are both paradoxical and simple. Realizing this, I find You once again adorable and irresistible. How could anyone live without searching for or knowing You!

Please, Creator, continue to lift the veil of my unknowing and misunderstanding, so that I may enjoy and bask in communion with You. Increasingly, I am becoming willing to forsake all for You, just as the Lord taught that we should. Thank you, thank you, thank you for the mercy You constantly bestow upon me, and for making me evermore aware of Your Presence within and around me. I love you. Amen.

November 25, 2020

Saṃsāra

Creator, the disbelief of others can be so contagious, especially when one feels weakened and blighted by one’s own frustration with You. The trials and tribulations of life can wear a soul down, taking a heavy toll, and we are often left in pain, fearful and confused, and with overwhelming feelings of abandonment. However, You have swept in to rescue me so many times – through the subtlest shifts in thought and feeling, through the “charge” I have taken to writing about, in which You seem to charge my very being along with the environment around me with the awareness and sensation of Your both soothing and overwhelming Presence; through chance encounters, through grace-filled happenstance, and through the biggest and smallest of miracles – and I long ago learned to stop questioning Your existence. Still, I must admit, You frustrate me so sometimes, even though I know that Your seeming inactivity and passivity is really Your greatest gift to us: the space and time to exhibit our free will and to learn what we must learn. We are allowed to do what we want, but with that gift we must also be willing to reap what we sow.

I believe, though still with a healthy amount of skepticism, that reaping what we sow can require many lifetimes; lifetimes filled with both abundance and destitution, depending on what karmic debts we have incurred or what karmic advances we have made. The Buddhists call this Saṃsāra – the beginningless and endless cycle of repeated births, mundane existences, and deaths – and consider it to be dukkha, painful and unsatisfactory, and perpetuated by desire and avidya, or ignorance of the Truth and of Ultimate Reality, which, in my opinion, is You. Coming to seek and know You for the Christian leads to heaven and for the Buddhist leads to Nirvana. Tomayto, tomahto, as far as I am concerned. We are all struggling to and adamant about finding just the right words, or word, to name and describe You. Impossible!

Still, how do I translate this knowing of Your existence to others? How do I articulate to others how it is that I have begun to see, hear, feel, and perceive You in everything, and that it has almost nothing to do with religion or pantheism, for that matter? How do I chart the trajectory my soul has gone on – for myself more than anyone else – mapping out the ways in which I see and perceive You running through quarks and the cosmos, through our cells and magnetic fields, through the laws of nature and through quantum physics, through our minds, bodies, hearts, and souls? You are both impersonal and extremely personal; at times You are seemingly cold, distant, pitiless, and remote, and at other times You are palpably close, warm, all-encompassing, and sacredly loving.

The devout seek You in scripture, in the sacred practices of prayer, meditation, and contemplation, and through acts of self-sacrifice, service and compassion toward others. The scientists seek You, though they may not say or admit so, in Your creations and through Your natural laws and mysteries, struggling to dissect, quantify, categorize, and pin You down. Funny enough, I sometimes feel atheists and pantheists are closest to knowing You because they have no preconceived notions of You; they only view and focus on “reality” – on what is – and You are, after all, Ultimate Reality; You are all there is.

On this Thanksgiving eve, I pray that You fill and surround loved ones and strangers alike with the awareness of Your Presence within and around them and within and around all things. I pray that You hover over those who are alone, abandoned, anguished, angry, and addicted, and that You fill them with faith, hope, and love, and with Your sacred peace and light. Most of all, I pray that You fill others with the knowledge of how profoundly intimate You can be, if sought, with each and every one of us. Amen.

Mark-Alexis, thank you for the gift of you opening to the invitation. I can relate better this way. Therefore, Thank you ♥ Yes, I am doing well. Today choosing to feel blessed and grateful. Your writing is inspiring and courageous; please keep sharing it. Blessings to you

Welcome. Thanks for sharing some of your experiences. Hoping to connect with you at some point. Kindred spirits are comforting.

Hi Rosa,

My name is Mark-Alexis. I am glad you connected with some of what I wrote. Hope you are doing well. Blessings!

If I knew your name, I could address your soul.

Welcome! I embrace you and your journey as I can connect with some of what you wrote.

November 12, 2020

Praying for Strangers

I prayed for strangers today, Creator; strangers I neither saw nor heard but whom I communicated with over a message board. I was suddenly struck in the heart by what felt like an arrow of burning grace and the tears gently flowed. I felt as if I had simultaneously been kissed by You and made a prayerful connection with someone – or a few people – hundreds or thousands of miles away. It was poignant and bittersweet.

It has been five days since I last wrote a prayer – I have been studying for an upcoming test and wallowing in my own worries and sorrows – but I have prayed to You intermittently throughout those days, and I have felt Your Presence, like a gentle breeze or like softly trickling water, quietly guiding, guarding, and giving me all that I need to feel sustained.

Why do we withdraw from You so easily even after becoming aware of and experiencing Your power, light, love, peace, and grace? I struggle with living or even imagining the ascetic and abstemious life You call me to live, though I know it is the “narrow path” the Lord spoke of. The narrow path both excites and frightens me.

You excite and frighten me, Creator; the amorphous vastness that is You. I imagine that we are supposed to allow ourselves to melt and dissolve into You, and that seems both scary and liberating. Faith in You has begun to erode the curiosity about and need to know why things happen as they do; why we suffer so much pain, loss, and darkness in this world. Perhaps we are meant to alternately feel such pain and dryness down here so that our ability to feel and give love will be all the greater for it.

Creator, hover over me; hover over all of us – those who are alone, abused, abandoned, addicted, anguished… Hover over and fill us with Your peace, grace, and love, and with the awareness of Your Presence in our lives always. Connect my prayer, like a thread of light, to all of the other prayers being uttered and whispered and felt throughout the world as I write this. Connect my prayer with all the rest so that they may form a net of prayer, like a luminescent web, encasing this world and all of the souls hovering throughout it, in peace, grace, and love.

Remind all of us daily, in every which way You can, of Your power and of Your peace, grace, and love. Peace, grace, and love… They fill me as I write this and I know that You are here. You are always here, but I am more aware of that now than I have ever been. Thank you. Amen.

Felt like sharing my written prayers from the last three days; a triptych of prayers, if you will:

November 2, 2020

The Pain of Growth (Part I)

5:11PM

Creator, I could not resist turning away from class for a moment (I am currently in a Social Work class and should be listening!) to write this epiphany I was struck by a while back and which I shared in class earlier today: Pain is intrinsic to growth. Whether growing physically, intellectually, emotionally, or spiritually, pain seems requisite. When teething, for example, teeth must gradually break through the tissue of the gums in order to be considered “grown.” This “break through” is often excruciating. The same can be said of growing muscles, which are built by repetitive movements or exercises that work them to the point of fatigue, soreness, and subsequent pain, all of which can last for several days after.

I think of the times I have struggled to digest a voluminous amount of information for school – especially math – and often, I have felt my brain swirl and ache from the data I managed to intake and struggled to digest. Emotionally, whether going through therapy or processing some event or feeling on my own, I have often felt my moods swing, accompanied by both arid and painful periods of numbness, sadness, and despair. Spiritual growth – which is really the process of recognizing, accepting, and striving to embrace You in all of Your vastness, followed by the deep yearning to be recognized, accepted, and embraced by You – can also cause great pain.

I have come to realize that getting to know You, Creator, demands of me a relinquishment of all pretense, egoism, delusions, and myopic expectations and entitlements. Getting to know You also requires a release of any and all preconceived notions of You I may have had or still hold on to. This is not easy. However, I cling to what the Lord said of You when He declared in 1 John 4:8:

Anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

The natural question for those that doubt Your existence would be: If God exists and is love, why is there so much evil and pain in the world? In fact, the natural question for someone like me, who does believe in Your existence, is: If You are love, Creator, why is it so painful sometimes to know and have faith in You?

November 3, 2020

The Pain of Growth (Part II)

Creator, thank you for carrying me through last night and all of today with only about an hour or so of sleep. Thank you for the strength, courage, determination, and love You bestow upon me like a heavenly bounty, as I strive to grow and reach closer to You, overcoming pain, doubt, and temptation along the way. I am nothing without You and You are everything without me, which makes Your love, embrace, and generosity all the sweeter and more precious.

Earlier this morning, as the wind, sharp and cold as a blade, blew outside, rustling the trees whose leaves clapped and danced in rapid movements and total adoration of You, and subsequently blew in through my opened windows, I underwent a short but profound trial, and I prayed for You to awaken in me the awareness of your Light and Presence. I held a small Bible in my hands and continued with my petition, praying for a word or a passage that I could turn to for solace and for confirmation of Your providence. As I opened to a random page, You answered and the Lord spoke to me through Luke 18:13-14:

…but [he] beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’… For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

The Savior’s words cut into me with a spiritual surgeon’s precision, and my tears burned like small fires, stinging the insides of my eyelids, as the frigid air continued to pierce through my opened windows and the sun began its gradual midheaven ascent. Instantly I knew that You and the Lord – that Great Comforter who brings us faith, hope, and love – were speaking to me. You had answered my prayer as requested, and I did my best to sit still, to endure the flush of humility and the ache of shame.

Pain is intrinsic to growth – that was the thought, or realization, I opened yesterday’s prayer with. And oh, how pain can humble even the most arrogant and proud. Is this why the Lord calls us to humility; as a way of preparing us to accept and even seek the pain of growth as He once did when He accepted and submitted Himself to His fate on the cross?

Creator, when you spoke to and questioned Job, You too made abundantly clear the levels of humility – and of Your power – You expected him – and us – to accept. You queried in Job 38:4-7:

Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? …When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

You have laid the foundation not just of the earth, but of all of the foundations known and unknown, visible and invisible; and we still, as Job did, doubt, question, and disobey You. I suppose I have answered the questions of the believer and nonbeliever I posed in my previous entry: If God exists and is love, why is there so much evil and pain in the world? If You are love, Creator, why is it so painful sometimes to know and have faith in You?

My thoughts eddy when considering the intricate design of creation and all of its laws, powers, and principalities; that is, until I take a deep breath and realize that Yours is the only power, and that my small, feeble, and futile little mind cannot possibly fathom nor comprehend “how it all works.” For example, I vacillate between believing and not believing in the existence of reincarnation. Somehow the concept of reincarnation seems to make so much sense to me. I do believe, Creator, that You would gift us with as many opportunities as possible to learn, experience, and grow, and to make-up for our past sins and mistakes. I also believe that all of the evils and injustices in this world fit into a grander scheme – one far beyond our grasp and scope – and that everything truly does happen for a reason.

Many times, we sow our own dark fates, however temporary, and relegate ourselves to trials and tribulations that could be avoided and transcended through the grace of humility. Growth is pain, but after the pain comes strength, hard won faith, and even joy.

I am tired now. I have been praying to You intermittently throughout the course of the day. It is Election night and the ballots still have not been completely tallied. Reports and estimates have been chaotic, to say the least, but You already know all of this. Hold me in Your light and love tonight, Abba-Imma. Fill and surround me with the awareness of Your ever-sustaining Presence, and guard me – my mind, heart, soul, and spirit – in sleep from the ways and wiles of darkness and evil, in the name of Our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus. Amen.

November 5, 2020

Take Up Your Bed and Walk

Creator, I almost went to bed without writing down a prayer and the thought of doing so was bothering me the way a subtle toothache does. I want to continue to break free of my self-imposed limitations. There is so much I have yet to do that I can easily begin doing to accomplish this.

I just randomly opened to scripture and the Lord spoke to me through John 5:11:

Take up your bed and walk.

How perfect and apropos. I do need to take up my bed and walk – in so many ways. Give me the strength, Creator, and the awareness to continue to speak and to begin to listen to You more. Be my heart, mind, soul, spirit, hands, and feet in this complex, illusory world.

You have flooded me with such solace within the last three years – since I decided to become clean and sober – and I thank You for that. I love You, Creator. Oh, how I love You. You are my beloved and somewhere, somehow, deep down inside, I know that I am Your beloved – that we are all your beloveds.

Flood and flush me with the graces of clarity, awareness, and remembrance tonight and tomorrow, and every day after. Remind me that I need to continue to pray, and should begin to meditate, and exercise my body, and eat better – cutting out the sugar and caffeine, and establishing a more regimented eating pattern. Remind me to focus on school and studying, so that I may continue making the tremendous progress I have been making thanks, in large part, to You.

Remind me, remind me, remind me, to not fall prey nor victim to the darkness that swirls around us in this transient plane of existence. Remind me to remain ever grateful for all of the security, chances, and blessings I have been gifted with despite my sins and transgressions against others and especially against myself.

I know in my heart it was You who called me in a whisper tonight to, at the very least, write down a prayer, though I intuit that You would much rather I surrender to prayer in a more involved and immersive fashion. This morning you called me to prayer, too, and I heard and obeyed. Please continue to do this, to call me into prayer.