From My Heart To Yours
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It’s been said that better questions lead us naturally to better answers, and that it’s in not knowing that we open the doorway to knowing. I’m Scott Lennox and you’re listening to The Beautiful Question, a consideration of things that truly matter in a complex world.
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Earlier this week, I told a friend that I don’t know where I’d be if it weren’t for the prayers and blessings other people have been so generous to offer me. I have no doubt that my life has been changed for the better because they have. In some of cases, I had no idea they were doing so until years later.
Join me this week as we consider prayers and blessings and as I offer my blessings to you with my heart wide open.
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Some time ago, I came across a study that reported small teams of people meeting every day for a month in undisclosed locations in different cities. Gathering in secret, their only task was to pray for the people who lived and worked in the surrounding area. The study concluded that positive changes took place, even though the people affected had no knowledge that they were being prayed for. The study also pointed out that the ones doing the praying were affected in positive ways, which is not surprising.
There’s a power in prayer that flows in both directions.
To clarify, I’m not pushing a religious position, nor am I considering prayer to be effective only in the realm of organized religion. I recognize the efficacy of secular prayer and good wishes. My own tradition as a Christian has deep roots in a strong Celtic heritage. Within that, offering prayers and blessings is central to the health and connection and overall wellbeing of individuals and families and of the global human family.
While prayer is certainly part of active faith in a Supreme Being, it’s also understood to be a natural and compassionate outpouring of the human heart. Through prayers and blessings, our humanity opens itself to the humanity of others. In that way, we offer mutual goodness and goodwill and a desire that the one being prayed for doesn’t suffer.
If you want to look further into it, a marvelous resource about the effectiveness of prayer can be found in the writing of Dr. Larry Dossey. He’s done research about it and has written several books, including Prayer Is Good Medicine, Healing Words, and One Mind. He can also be found on YouTube and other streaming sites.
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Ours is a time of growing social stress and contention. Because of it, the need for mutual honoring and blessing one another is a powerful one.
To that end, my goal this week has nothing to do with convincing you of the power or effectiveness of prayer. You’re naturally free to form your own ideas or beliefs about that. My intention is to drop into stillness, and from that place, pray directly for you, listening to the intuitive voice in me that knows without a single double that we are inseparably and infinitely connected.
Speaking in that way, I offer you kindness and acceptance and compassion in the hope that your life may be touched in some good way, and that the blessings will spread in ever-widening spirals to the rest of our amazing human family. I think of the beautiful way in which nautilus shells and flowers and distant galaxies are constantly expanding.
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photo: Scott Lennox
So, from my heart to yours, may you receive these words at just the right time and in just the right way.
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September Skies, courtesy of Epidemic Music
In times of strife and struggle, whether the challenges are inside or around you, whether they are close to you or far away, may you find within you all the light you need to help you see where you must go.
And from that quiet and timeless inner place, may you find the courage and the strength you need to take the steps you know that you must take.
When you are lonely and your heart aches to be seen and warmly held, may someone reach out and take you into the safety of their embrace, comforting you and reminding you of your sure and Sacred place within the human family—the place where you have always belonged and always will.
And when the days stretch out ahead of you, and the nights grow even longer, and sleep becomes so elusive, may you peacefully lay your head down. And at the same time, may you lay down your cares and rest in the undisturbed sanctuary of your luminous and beautiful soul.
When you lose the ones you love, and your grief for them grows as fierce as waves overtaking the bow of a small boat on a vast and storm-tossed sea, may the wordless presence of those who love and understand you lift you up until once again, you set your foot on solid ground and find yourself at home.
And when your thoughts become as entangled as a thousand knotted threads, or they hum with the droning of an endless swarm of bees, may true silence arise to settle you, soothing your mind and giving you the ease that clarity always brings.
When you look into the mirror and it seems that you have lost your sense of who and what you are, and you hardly recognize the glistening eyes of the person looking back at you, may you look beyond the tears and see within your gaze the valuable and unchanging self that is always vibrant and alive.
And in that recognition—the remembering of what can never be corrupted or taken from you—may you speak such love to yourself that it sinks into your heart like warm oil, a soothing balm that washes over every part of you, filling you with Grace and Love without condition or demand.
When hope seems like a treasure you once held but has been lost with the passing of time, may you be guided to find it where it’s always been, nested deep inside you, sitting as quietly as a mother bird with her breast lightly resting on her unhatched eggs.
And when you awaken to a new day—as you surely will—may you celebrate the unspeakably precious gift of your own life. And may that day be filled with things that inspire and intrigue you.
And through it all, may you walk as compassionately with yourself as a best friend or lover would walk with you. And at the end of the day, may your smile be one of peace, and hope, and inextinguishable light.
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Thank you for allowing me to pour into you some of the compassion and love and hope that have been poured into me. I’m still discovering that the more we give it away, the more it comes back to us, multiplied and illuminated.
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This week’s two Beautiful Questions are elegantly brief and yet, exquisitely important.
One: What prayers or blessings do you offer to yourself?
Two: What prayers or blessings do you offer to others?
As always, I’d love to hear your answers. Write and tell me about them. I’m always willing to listen.
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As I say each week,
My Light with Your Light
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Thank you for joining me in these podcasts as we keep doing everything we can to respond to life in increasingly effective ways. As always, I’m open to your comments and feedback.
If you find these podcasts useful, don’t hesitate to share them or tell others about them. That’s a great way of helping me get a voice of calm and collaboration and balance and encouragement out into the world.
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I’m Scott Lennox, and this has been The Beautiful Question.
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The Beautiful Question is a One Light production, written, produced and engineered by Scott Lennox at HeartRock Studios in Fort Worth, Texas, as a way of paying forward to life, being fully present, becoming better engaged with things that truly matter in a complex world, and committing to a healthier future for all of us.