An apologists view on prayer

merriam-webster.com/dictionary

apol·o·gist

noun \ə-ˈpä-lə-jist\

: a person who defends or supports something (such as a religion, cause, or organization) that is being criticized or attacked by other people 

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Every culture prays or has prayed to some sort of God or Deity.  They must believe prayer brings them benefits or they would not continue the practice.  Muslims bow toward Mecca five times a day and pray, and in their mosques, offer their prayers to Allah.  Hindu's pray both at home and in temples to their representations of God.  Christians pray at home and in churches to God, Jesus, Mary and some, to a list of saints. Jews pray at home and in the temple to  the unnamed God whom some call Y H W H  or Adonai which means Lord.  There are at least a dozen other revered religions like Jain, Sikh, Buddhist, etc.etc. all of which offer prayers to either their God or those who possess virtues who have passed on.  There are many early religions which have prayed to sacred symbols, animals, locations or spirits who have influenced their lives. There are many religions of today who pray to founders, or spirits who inhabit special realms in the Himalayas or other places.

There are books and videos and CD's on prayer, how to pray and how to influence the god or Gods to do your will.  My niece used to say God is not a wish nick but many persons direct their prayers as if the object of their prayer was one. 
There is the "Prayer of Jabez" to increase your territory which has attracted a  a whole series by itself.


I would imagine there are as many kinds of prayer as there are men and women who pray, but I think they all have one thing in common.  An attempt by a mortal to connect with a source or being other than his or herself  to effect a relationship and gain some kind of favor.
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merriam-webster.com/dictionary/favor
Full Definition of FAVOR. 1. a (1): friendly regard shown toward another especially by a superior (2): approving consideration or attention


Many Atheists and agnostics find no reason for prayer and deny any attributes for it.  Others of a "spiritual" nature, but not religious in any sense, feel it may effect some change but are at a loss to explain how or what occurs when one prays.
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Now having put forth all of the above what do I think?
I call myself a follower of Jesus and I pray to God and the Holy Spirit which I believe exists in all of us. 
How or What is prayerfor me? :
I compare it to the butterfly effect which occurs when a small insignificant creature in South America flaps it's wings and influences the wind in Texas.
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"The butterfly effect is a term used in chaos theory to describe how small changes to a seemingly unrelated thing or condition (also known as an initial condition) can affect large, complex systems. The term comes from the suggestion that the flapping of a butterfly's wings in South America could affect the weather in Texas, meaning that the tiniest influence on one part of a system can have a huge effect on another part. Taken more broadly, the butterfly effect is a way of describing how, unless all factors can be accounted for, large systems like the weather remain impossible to predict with total accuracy because there are too many unknown variables to track."(From Wise Geek )
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We know without doubt that people can communicate with each other without wires or other attachments.  Cell phones, the Internet, and satellite communications prove this beyond any apparent doubt.  Why is it so far fetched or a matter of only faith, to believe we can communicate with our Creator or the Spirit or Life Force within each of us?  We have horse whispers and dog whispers and  and people who communicate with other animals.  We know that many of earth's creatures communicate with sounds humans cannot hear or understand. Many animals like dolphins, and elephants communicate on levels we seek desperately to understand.  Birds fly in V shaped formation with no apparent communications and ants scurry to the latest sugar find and bees fly towards a threat to their hive, with a suddenness we cannot begin to understand.
Communication which is unheard or not understood is rampant through out the universe and yet so many doubt the power and effect of prayers. I know many will say prove to me prayer has an effect and possibly I too would believe.  I only believe in what can be known, understood or seen.
O.K. then, Does a tree which falls in the forest make a sound if there is no one there to hear it? 
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Best AnswerVoter's Choice

• Kid B answered 4 years ago

No.

Everything that vibrates the air creates the potential for sound, regardless of what conscious being is there to perceive it in the first place. If there is nobody is there to perceive it occurring, then it could not exist as sound, only vibration.

Sound is a subjective interaction with matter. All that sound is, is vibrations through a medium, without humans to perceive it, those vibrations that we call sound, when the tree fell, would make vibrations, but "sound" as we know it, couldn't exist, since no conscious being was there to interpret those vibrations.

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O.K. so a vibration can be heard only if there is a conscious being to interpret the vibration.  But Humans are conscious beings so why if mental vibrations, or brain waves are generated when we pray, cannot another conscious being receive the brain wave or vibration and be effected by it?

I think science has not yet discovered the effects and consequences of prayer but that doesn't mean there are none.  The generation of and reception of individual brain waves to and from others has not yet been proven by science. I think individual and group prayers do have an effect on the consciousness of the receiver and can generate physical changes in health, happiness and even material bodies.  As with other ideas it remains to be seen or proved but I believe in possibilities and things unseen.

Friendship Lost, then Regained

Last week, Jan 31st to Feb 6 I received a visit from my lost friend C.M.  I had known C for 8 years between 1964 and 1974.  We lost touch because I abandoned her after she got pregnant with her daughter K.  I didn't let her go because she was pregnant, but because I had issues with her husband.  C's mother had recently regained her health and I felt with her baby and mother for support C would be too busy to care if I was no longer in her life.  Unfortunately, I could not just let our relationship drift.  Instead I wrote her an apparently devastating letter telling her I no longer wanted to be friends.  I did this for a variety of reasons which I can barely recall now, 42 years later.  I know one of the expressed reasons was that she and her husband were always comparing everything they did with us to our detriment. Our house, our car, our furniture, our wood paneling, our anything was up for competition.  I think I secretly feared the baby and their little family would be compared to our childless state, as well. We were in the relationship for friendship, not competition.
  I know I included C in my reasoning but the letter was truly directed to her husband.  My husband had said he never wanted to see M again or have him in our home.  I was young and inexperienced with handling situations like this so instead of talking to C I sent her a Dear John letter.  This had the intended result but I always missed C in my life and felt guilty about what I had done. 


In August 2013 when I was thinking about C, I looked her up on Face book  I discover she was no longer married to M and was in face in a deep relationship with a man she loved with all her heart.  After reading her timeline and that of her daughter K, I got up the courage to contact her and asked her if she would be able to renew you friendship. I have briefly copied my request and her gracious response below.

Claire Sastri

Hi C, I was looking for old friends on Facebook and there you were. Would you like to catch up again. Claire(Terry) Sastri

August 31, 2013

Hi again C. thanks for friending me. It has been a long time.  Can you send me an email, so I can update you on what has happened in my life since we were in touch? K is a lovely young woman. I'm sorry I missed her growing up years. Love, Terry

The Claire threw me off, but Sastri definitely got my attention. I'd love to reconnect with you; I felt so awful way back then when you "broke up" with me. I had such high regard for you and valued our friendship immeasurably. I'm sure both of our lives have changed considerably. I do prefer email to facebook since it's more private, so look for mine.

Since this initial correspondence my friend and I have been joined at the hip.  Not literally but we email, do facebook, call each other, and best of all she visited us.


In fact it seems like there had been no separation between us.  The events that took place in our lives took us on very separate adventures but who we really are remained the same.  I remembered C as very intelligent with a photographic memory.(She says it is not, but admits it is really good).  I also remembered her as very proficient in French and always said she spoke like a native. (she says she doesn't but did get a 3 month scholarship to McGill Univ. in Montreal to study towards her Masters). She now speaks French, Italian and Spanish fluently, and a smattering of other languages and dialects.  She is a Doctor of English Literature, who wrote her thesis on Milton.  She taught language of 30 years and is still teaching as an Associate Professor at a community college.  She has traveled to almost every country in the world as well as extensively in the U.S.  Still this amazing and learned woman is as natural and forgiving as they come. She is brave and confident and extremely loving and considerate.


I threw away a relationship with this lovely woman many years ago and I am so blessed to have her back in my life. 
I think I have written this as both a confession of extreme stupidity in my life, as well as a caution to others.  Be very careful in your relationships and do not let your friends and family slip away.  If you do you will miss out on life's greatest treasures 

BFF???

This can be deep or shallow depending on where you are when you wade in.
I have always thought that friendships eluded me. I felt that there was most likely something wrong with me for being unable to keep deep relationships with people, other than my husband.  I know that through our fifty years together he has been most forgiving of my deepest faults and accepting of my minor ones. 
I have learned through the years that I have always expected way too much of the people I have called my friends.  On the one hand I have always been attracted to charismatic personalities.  For a few of my BestFriendsNever or BFN,  beginning with Christa,( followed by Marissa, Margaret, and several others who shall not be named), it was admiration at first sight and a long time after to regret.  I really loved these women for their charm, wit, sense of style and I think, secretly , their apparent admiration for me and my qualities. Alas and alack, each of these friendships resulted in them betraying me and then moving along, out of touch forever.
I always did and still do,( and perversely so), miss their friendship.  They had me at go and when they went it left me with a huge emptiness I thought could not be filled.  I thought for a long time that everyone woman I loved and admired could not love me back and I felt a deep hole where there had been a best friend.  I felt there was something really lacking for me in the friendship department. 
Because of these failed relationships in my late teens and early twenty's I failed to be a good friend to others.  I had learned that friendships were expendable and if I was not very careful I would be hurt again. When you do not allow yourself to feel deeply you can shut yourself off from opportunities of more lasting friendships.  You can leave locations and companies and jobs with seldom a backward glance at relationships you have left behind.  I shut the door firmly on every job I ever left, to my regret now. 
My mom always told me you were blessed if when you were old you could count your good friends on one hand. I believed this. What I have now discovered is that if you hold to this and only seek a few good friends you are denying all the other good people and great qualities they have. I do not believe now that friendships should be limited.  Of course some people hold special places in our hearts, but we really need to be in relationship with as many people as we can.  I used to laugh at people with 800 face book friends.  I no longer laugh.  I see my sister-in-law and all the people who helped her plan and supported her through the marriage ceremonies of her daughter. I also see her daughter with 18 attendants at her wedding and am proud she values and honors so many of her friends.  We are a community to which we all contribute. 
Over subsequent years I have had many lovely friendships with many treasured and wonderful women, but I continued to search for a BFF who had the special haunting qualities of those who had abandoned me.  I ignored all the lovely roses and pansies, lilacs, hyacinths and irises around me and kept searching for the illusive exotic orchids which had escaped me.
Finally in my late 50's and 60's I learned to value the flowers of friendship which were offered to me and love the true beauty of these friendships which endured despite my stupidity.
I have finally learned to value the metals of gold and silver and even brass, copper, and iron. I have always been attracted to bling and glitter, flashing lights, and the exotic.  I still unfortunately have these attractions and denying them would mean denying a part of myself.  I am, however, more discerning about the value of what and to whom I am attracted.  Core values are very real to me now and I have thankfully lived long enough to re evaluate my life and friendships.  I have had wonderful experiences with old friends who have forgotten or forgiven my past mistakes and given me the renewed friendship and love, I was afraid I had lost. I also have new friends who mean the world to me and I am so thankful they have allowed me into their lives.
I am reminded of the hackneyed phrase" Make new friends but keep the old, some are silver and the others are gold."  And some who were lost were pure dross