the adventures of dharma punk and prayer

i was having a conversation about an former yoga teacher who had kind of disappeared. i knew her daughter was sick, but i didn't realize she was sick with an eating disorder. the last i saw the teacher, i was blissfully leaving class and asked how everything was with her....i was taking a lot of her classes and getting to know her better....she looked at me and said, "things are really bad, my daughter is sick." then she was interrupted and i never saw her again. i was really moved by this and even sent her an email to follow up. i was upset by the way she said it, but i never really heard back from her.

so after hearing the reason of the sickness, and that the daughter was still sick i was overwhelmed, to the point of feeling compelled to pray.
funny i should think to do that bc i really don't know how i feel about god and prayer in general. there was a time in my life where i would pray a lot. i kind of thought it was my calling, to be a sort of intercessor. this sounds strange to even type, but it was my reality. now i question the whole concept and value of a prayer. i mean, it's not like i would constantly be asking for things in prayer, but the prayer seemed to me to take that pain onto myself. anyway, i am still the caring person i was, but maybe i just don't call prayers prayer anymore, but i also don't over expend myself to strangers, there is a tougher shell.

this all came up from the meditation in class, where my teacher, sharon, shared from this book called dharma punk. to make a long story short it brought up my thoughts on prayer...mostly because(and this is where the whole dharma punk lesson comes in) i am in this place where i am trying to be me minus that whole world of christianity and what not, without pushing spirituality completely out and closing off my emotions. so the topic was acceptance, and now after typing that i feel like i am my mom talking about AA..."nicki, you need to learn more about acceptance, it's in the steps. you need to look at yourself and change."

but really, i constantly run into this idea of polarity. i think and mostly act in extremes. in my mind it is hard to see how things can be gray and that's ok. but life is about the different shades of gray and really they aren't gray at all. between back, which is the absense of color and white there are all the colors and perspective. there is a nice balance that needs to be found. and it is in that, that we can be our selves, right? ying and yang, old and new, higher self and lower self...etc. the thing is that it's hard to accept the here and now when it isn't the way i want it (i just erased we and put i). but that is the way you live life to the fullest.

amen.