page 46, reading of book on prayer

Greetings everyone,

On page 46 of the book on prayer is the following:

On our part, any effort
to make ourselves feel God's presence
is nearly always wrong.
It cannot be wished or willed into being.
It is a gift from God.

In an earlier post, there was given the example of a boy asking a Holy Man to teach him to pray. The Holy Man pushed the boy's head under some water and helped the boy feel like he was drowning (form of waterboarding?) and the lesson was "When you long to pray as much as you longed to breathe when your head was underwater--only then will I be able to teach you to pray."

One day, Jerry and I were driving somewhere, and the NPR was on radio. A young man was recalling when his grandmother died. The young man didn't pray. His mom told him, "Son, praying is just thoughts so just keep thinking about your grandma. God hears and responds to all your thoughts."

I've had to do a lot of thinking about infant baptism and about adult baptism, about praying and also about thinking, and about stuff like the above words on page 46, and also about how I might best encourage and be with others as they wrestle with being in the Presence of God, definitely don't want to be an obstacle in anyone's way in their relationship with God and yet sinner that I am I know that that also happens in my relationships with others as it has happened to me from time-to-time. Feeling God's Presence is a gift from God. I think page 46 is a theological crux of it all for the Church.

God's Peace,
Sharon