Today’s blog
Lynn Murphy Mark
I affirm
In Unity faith we depend upon affirmations and negations. Affirmations state the Truth of our being and Negations set free those elements in our thoughts and souls that hold us back from our Truth. As a prayer chaplain I am taught to pray affirmatively by calling on the all the possibilities that can support a prayer request. In so doing, I affirm the wholeness, health, and spiritual energy that are within each person asking for a prayer. Despite the circumstances, which are sometimes hard and painful, I speak words meant to give the message that God is greater than any outward appearances. This doesn’t mean that prayers are happy, happy, joy, joy statements. Instead they call upon the powers that reside in each of us to be a part of an answer. They are reminders that spiritual and physical resources exist for all of us.
For the last four weeks I have been studying and participating in classes about becoming a prayer chaplain trainer. I took this on for a couple of reasons. One, to deepen my understanding of the prayer process and two, to be one of the presenters at our annual intensive training of current Unity chaplains in our area and of anyone interested in becoming a prayer chaplain.
The reading and exercises have been fulfilling. And, in the zoom sessions, I am guided by Reverend Lei Lanni Burt, the creator of the prayer chaplain program that is in use in most Unity churches around the world.
She is a remarkable woman. I say she is elderly, but she is not old. Every week for two hours she teaches us the program she has lovingly crafted over 20 years. As a participant I now have a trainer’s manual filled with knowledge and techniques to be used in training anyone from a seasoned prayer chaplain to a beginner, just starting on this spiritual journey. I think this is my sixth year. I am lightly seasoned, with more to learn and experience. And I remember the awkwardness I felt in the beginning as people approached with a wide variety of prayer requests.
This many years later, words and inspiration flow through me as I am in the presence of a prayer requestor. This is how it works: “A Medicine Woman’s Prayer
I will not rescue you
For you are not powerless.
I will not fix you
For you are not broken.
I will not heal you
For I see you in your wholeness.
I will walk with you through the darkness
As you remember your light.”
This last week we reviewed the material about “the human condition”. We talked a lot about grief, an internal reaction to an outward happening. Grief often appears in people’s prayer requests. Besides that, people come experiencing various stages of grief. Often it is a situation that may be familiar to the prayer chaplain. These times require a special ability to detach from our personal feelings that may come welling up in response. One thing we never say is, “I know how you feel, that happened to me”.
In this section I remember being a certified hospice and palliative care nurse and one of my jobs was to train groups of nurses. This is a profession that requires an ability to step out of our personal feelings in order to absorb the big picture of our patients and families. My job was to teach ways in which we directly deal with the discomfort and emotional trauma that people being served by hospice often experience. It was common for someone to ask me, “How much longer?”. Most often I would say, “I don’t know. But we have today, so let’s make it the best today we can.” Then I would remind the nurses of all the tools we carry to provide comfort and reassurance.
This approach works as well for prayer chaplains. When we are in the flow of “All That Is”, there are many possible ways to pray affirmatively as we open ourselves to God’s gifts.
Next Saturday is our last session together. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to participate in this training and hope to share this knowledge whenever I can.