New Vision (For 2009)

If we allow ourselves to stay at the lower level of consciousness; either/or, all or nothing thinking, we haven’t been taught how to pray. The reason some of us almost hesitate to use the word prayer is because it has become this practical, functional, making announcements to God. It is the very thing that Jesus told us not to do. "Why do you babble on like the pagans do?" God already knows.

Prayer, which was a code word in the New Testament for this different consciousness, became pretty much a practical problem solving thing. It was not a new mind and a new heart with which you looked out at reality.

(Richard Rohr, A New Way of Seeing / A New Way of Being; Jesus and Paul)