May you feel connected to beauty today! This newsletter is about the spiritual practice of Prayer.
At the beginning of my junior year of college, my academic advisor strongly encouraged me to apply for a Harry S. Truman Scholarship, which is a national scholarship that provides funding for graduate school and opportunities to participate in a leadership conference and a summer internship in Washington, DC. Receiving a Truman Scholarship is awesome for someone who loves public policy as much as I do.
The Truman Scholarship application contained multiple sections that I had to complete. Most of the sections were quite familiar to me, such as providing my contact information and letters of recommendation; however, one section was completely new to me and the prospect of completing the section was simultaneously, exciting and daunting. The section was writing a policy proposal. Writing a policy proposal for this application required applicants to determine an issue in society that they wanted to address and create a public policy that they believed would improve the situation.
While I loved public policy and could think of several issues that I wanted to work on, writing a policy proposal that would wow the Truman Scholarship Selection Committee and could possibly improve society literally kept me up at night. I kept thinking about all of the issues facing those with disabilities and the policies that could improve each situation.
Finally, I decided to focus on improving the employment rate of disabled adults. Then, the perfect policy proposal came right to me! Typing up my proposal took a few days. When I finished typing the main part of the proposal, I was on cloud 9. So much so, that I gave myself a day off to rest before completing the final section of the proposal: a list of citations.
After my day off, I was in the midst of looking up the citations for my proposal when it happened. While researching citations, I found a reference to a little known law with a name that sounded suspiciously similar to the name of my policy. I looked up this little known law and found that it was exactly the same policy that I had just conceived of and typed up.
The directions at the top of the page of the Truman application said that our policy proposal had to be “innovative and unique.” I took the words ‘innovative and unique’ to mean that our policy proposal couldn’t be a law that had been passed ten years earlier and was already the law of the land! Hence, I waved goodbye to the policy proposal that I had spent days perfecting.
After giving myself a few minutes to do my version of griping, I took a deep breath and thought, “There is a innovative policy proposal that is mine for the taking. I just need to think about this issue from a different angle. Please help me God.”
I stepped away from my desk and went to bed for the night, or so I thought. After about 30 minutes of laying down, a thought came to me: “Why not use an accounting principle to improve the employment rate of disabled adults?” I pondered this question for a few minutes and then, eureka!! The idea for my new policy proposal came.
Financial statements could be used to improve the employment rates of disabled adults! Since I was enrolled in an Introductory Accounting class that semester, I grabbed my accounting textbook and began creating a policy proposal that I believed would be innovative, unique and effective. After crafting a preliminary outline of my new proposal, I researched current laws regarding financial statements. I decided that if there was already a law similar to my proposal, now was the time to discover it. To my utter joy, and relief, there was no law similar to my policy proposal. Over the next few days, I polished up my proposal and submitted my completed application to my advisor. That policy proposal helped me win a Truman Scholarship!
Although I didn’t realize at the time, when I asked God to help me come up with a second policy for my application, I was actually praying. Sometimes, a prayer can be as simple as a thought of something that we want to experience. God is always listening and wants to help us manifest the life of our deepest desires. As a child, I often heard adults say that you should pray to God for an answer to your “problem.” However, as an adult, I learned that prayer itself is the answer because the Divine is within us. To experience a desire that is in our best interest, we need to be aligned with the Divine. Through the act of praying, we align our minds, emotions and energy with the Divine which allows us to be the vessel through which our prayers come to fruition. Our prayers are manifested because of our alignment with the Divine!
Have a wonderful two weeks! I’ll see you soon!
Love, blessings and purple,
Allison
This practice is adopted from an exercise found in the book, A Course in Miracles. Try incorporating this exercise into your routine over the next two weeks. If you need modifications to the practice, scroll down to the section titled Access Notes.
Prayer For Being Of Service
If you already have a prayer practice, continue doing it. But, if you don’t currently pray or you’re looking for a new prayer, try doing the following each morning(or as often as you can) over the next two weeks.
When you wake up each morning, say the following prayer with as much feeling as possible:
Lord, where would You have me go?
What would You have me do?
What would You have me say?
And, to who?
Throughout your day, remain attentive to opportunities to help others. You may see an opportunity to be of service or you might get an intuitive nudge to say something kind to a stranger or someone close to you. Know that being of service does not necessarily mean doing something huge. Being of service means doing what you can, where you are to help someone (or something).
The following modifications are intended to create equal access to the spiritual practice above. These modifications are somewhat general to be as useful as possible to as many people as possible. Please feel free to further tweak the exercise as needed so that you can participate as fully as possible while honoring your body’s needs.
1. If you are unable to leave your home, after you have prayed, remain attentive to ways to serve from your home. You do not need to leave your home to serve others. Simply say your prayer and the Divine will provide you with opportunities to serve that are perfect for you!
2. If you are nonverbal or minimally verbal, I suggest doing the following to determine how to make your prayer practice as effective as possible:
a. First, if you use an AAC device that has a voice synthesizer, type the prayer into your communication device. Have your communication device speak the prayer. As your device says the prayer, feel as much passion and emotion as possible.
b. Second, say the prayer in your head with as much passion and emotion as you can.
c. Third, ask someone to say the prayer out loud for you. If you have another person speak the affirmations, ask the person to say your name instead of saying the word ‘me.’ As the person says the prayer, feel as much passion as possible.
d. Once you finish, figure out which method enabled you to feel your prayer the most deeply.
3. If you communicate via sign language, sign your prayer with as much feeling as possible.
