Acronyms For Everybody!

Pray:  To petition or solicit help from a supernatural or higher being; to communicate with God for any reason.

I like that "supernatural" is in the definition.  It gives praying sort of a Batman feel.  I also like the "for any reason" part.  I'm pissed.  How about that?  I can just harangue God for an hour or so?  I don't think the pastors of my church would like the "any reason" part.  It sounds pretty permissive.

In my religion we were given the acronym ACTS: adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication.  Yeah, I didn't use that. My personal acronym was SHIT: scream, hit, intimidate, threaten.  Supplicate this, dude.

Some quotes for ya . . . . 

"At no time had we asked what god's will was for us; instead we had been telling him what it ought to be."

And a little later . . . but not that much later . . . which suggests that our founders knew we weren't paying attention . . . 

"We had not even prayed rightly.  We had always said 'Grant me my wishes' instead of 'Your will be done.' "

Now that we're sitting upright in our chairs, fully attuned to the lecture: "It is when we try to make our will conform with God's that we began to use it rightly.  Our whole trouble had been the misuse of willpower.  We had tried to bombard our problems with it instead of attempting to bring it into agreement with God's intention for us."

There's a great Simpson's episode where the beefy gym coach only allows the kids to play a game called Bombardment.   The game consists of the coach smashing balls into the kids with great force.  

That's how I pray.

But yet . . . 

"The minute I stopped fighting or arguing, I could begin to see and feel.  We trust infinite god rather than our finite selves.  We are in the world to play the role god assigns.  Just to the extent that we do as we think he would have us, and humbly rely on him, does he enable to match calamity with serenity."

OK, this has gotten awfully close to being too religious-ey even for me.   I am glad I got to capitalize the word SHIT.  It brings some carnal earthiness to the passages.