Dear Lord...

I know you must be cringing every time somebody refers to you as "Lord" or "King", since these where the aristocrats that waged war, ruled mostly cruel over their subjects, and got rich on their people's back. You, however, do not rule over us, but gave us free will to do whatever we feel like. You gave us the instinct of inquisitiveness that can help us search for what makes sense, and a brain that can help us in any situation identify many available options, and choose the one that makes the most sense.

 

I am sure, if you had a head, you would shake it in disbelief, every time people start talking about you performing supernatural miracles. You have sent and keep sending us instance over instance, opportunity over opportunity where we could realize that you are not using supernatural magic to improve situations; you are not sending lightning-bolts, not flicking your fingers even if you had fingers. You are working through us humans, you are using us as instruments, as tools to implement the divine intervention.

 

I am convinced, if you had arms, you would through them up every time people are misled and taught useless, illogical religious traditions. Some claim you sent your son to give us the message in clear language, yet, they focus on all kinds of other texts - some in total contradiction of Jesus' simple message: love your neighbor and love your god. Some focus on the question whether Jesus was a real person, and on examples for how his message was implemented 2000 years ago, instead of pondering questions that are relevant today - for example:

• What mode of transportation would Jesus use?
• Would he use styrofoam?
• Would he use his money to pay for cable, weaves, breast implants, or sports tickets?
• Would he glorify the military?
• Would he encourage youth to study science or football, language or soccer, math or basketball?
• To what temperature would he set his thermostat in the summer, and what temperature in the winter?
• Would he vote in the elections? And if so, for whom?
• Would he run, or send his kids to a Martial Arts studio?
• What kind of food would he buy, prepare, and eat?

 

So many questions that are highly relevant and important today! Yet so many focus on repeating over and over again, that Jesus died FOR us! Heck, he died THROUGH us! We killed him! And we would kill him all over again today, if he came back - we surely are making peoples' lives miserable if they don't believe, behave, look, act like us! I can not fathom how you have not yet given up on us!

 

I guess you must often wonder what might have gone wrong when you created us; why are we just not getting it? You provide for us situation over situation, where we could realize that when we are making a contribution to the development of this world, we are rewarded with happiness and fulfillment. Yet, we always look for "what is in it for me?" We try to achieve happiness through shopping, controlling other people, striving for personal comfort - and fail miserably. We seek fulfillment through money, power, status - and fail miserably. We choose to believe this world was created for us - and wonder why we destroy it!

 

Here I pray:

• May we start teaching our children to ask in any situation: "What contribution could I make now?", so that the next generation has a chance to fix the problems we're apparently so incapable of resolving.
• May we stop glorifying military and martial arts and guns and fighting, so that peace may come to our streets.
• May we stop trying the same old approaches and wonder why we get the same old outcomes. May we instead change our core world-view, as doing this will automatically change our values, our priorities, our approaches, and our actions.
• May we stop acting like animals, and instead learn to go beyond our animal instincts, so that we become the angels that we were meant to be when we came to this world.
• May we each accept our function as highly sophisticated and specialized tool to work on specific issues in our world in whatever little way we can, may we each search for our specific purpose, and may we each accept our mission to make this world a better place! And may we see in everybody else the potential for being an angel - no matter what color, race, sexual orientation, origin of birth, language, age, background, or whatever..., so we can attempt to help them with their mission, rather than hinder and harass them.

 

I hope this my prayer would put a smile on your face, if you had a face - it is the best I was able to do. Well I guess, you might be curious now to see, how many people who read this prayer will act like the pharisees in self-righteous upset, and how many will be good soil where these seeds of thought can germinate and grow.

 

Amen