Conversations For Transformation: Essays Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

Conversations For Transformation

Essays By Laurence Platt

Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

And More




Prayer

Isla Vista Beach, Goleta, California, USA

February 17, 2012



This essay, Prayer, is the companion piece to It is also the tenth in a group of twenty reflections of God: I am indebted to Pastor Brian Empie who inspired this conversation.



Good morning God.

How are  you?

It's been a long time (too  long, actually) since we last spoke. I'm inspired to speak with you right now. There's no one here on this beach except you and me. The single set of footprints following me on its freshly washed smooth sand, make me wonder whether they're my  footprints? or whether they're yours as you carry me (... it's a great poster, isn't it? I know you've seen it ...). This splendidly colored sunrise, burnished with fiery golds and bronzes and azure blues, is the perfect time and the perfect setting for being with you. This now  is a great occasion to walk with you and talk with you and catch up with you uninterrupted and undistracted.

I want you to know how much I love the Life you make possible. I know you don't need my thanks, but I thank you anyway. I love you being in my life. Actually it's more than that: it's a privilege  being awake to you in my life. Really it is. Having you be in my life is what I'm committed to. My intention is to ongoingly create and re-create myself as a space, as a clearing, as a context  in which you show up. This is what I do. This is what I'm being. This is who I am. There's no duress  for me, there's no obligation for me living this way. It's simpler than that, waaay  simpler than that, actually. It's things just go better when I live my life in a way which creates the space in which you show up. So I suppose you could say having you in my life is significant. Yes, you could  say it's significant - and people do. But it isn't. Honest  it isn't! It's pragmatic.

Pragmatic is what's realistic. Because you're you, it's realistic to be around you. Listen: where else can I be but  around you? There's no place I could go in the entire cosmos which isn't  around you. So: pragmatic, yes. But significant?  How can what is, how can what's so  be significant? Because what is is, because what's so is so, because I am, it makes you fait accompli. Fait accompli, yes ... but not significant. I assert people who make you significant (indeed even well intentioned  people who make you significant, even men and women of good will  who make you significant) don't know their ass from a hole in the ground. And I don't like talking about you with people who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground (as Werner Erhard may have said).

It's belief  which makes significance. Believing in you makes you significant. This is why I don't believe  in you, any more than I believe in the tooth fairy or in Santa Clause. The thing about believing in you, the thing about believing in what is, the thing about believing in what's so is that what is, what's so, doesn't require my belief. In fact, my belief interferes  with what is, my belief interferes  with what's so. Whether or not I believe in what is, whether or not I believe in what's so, it's still what is, it's still what's so. That's why, in honor and full recognition of who you really are, I don't believe in you. Rather, I experience  you. And get this: I experience you as who I really am. I experience you as the context  I really am. In the context of who I really am, I experience you as the preponderance of what is showing up. In the context of who I really am, I experience you as the preponderance of what's so showing up.

Here's only one of the myriads of things I love about you. I love you for being you, for being awesome, magnificent, magnanimous you, and at the same time always being nothing more (and always being nothing less) than simple dogshit reality, baseline, ground zero. Indeed, is there any other way to know you which honors you more, which respects you more, which heralds  you more, which lauds you more than this?

When I explore the line where you stop and where I start, first it blurs, and then I can't find it at all. That I am  is evidence that you are. That I am, is also evidence of what's started. And it's I, now clearly started, who creates the space in which you show up.

M&oumllbius strip courtesy dadcando.com
Möbius Strip In Blue
There's no point  belaboring this rich dichotomy, this möbius strip  of a distinction in which each side seems to run into and become the other side - no point, that is, unless it's to further buttress and invest in yet another belief system about you (of which there are already way too many) which, by righteously serving itself, will render the possibility of actually experiencing  you, of actually being with  you, remote.

When I get I'm really  here, when I get I'm really present, I get it's already whole, complete, and perfect. When I get it's already whole, complete, and perfect, then in my view, denying it's already whole, complete, and perfect, dishonors you. I'm not interested in imposing this view on anyone, and I don't believe in blasphemy (you know me: I don't even believe in belief). But look: if  I believed in blasphemy, then denying it's already whole, complete, and perfect, epitomizes blasphemy.

I'm totally clear about what your purpose is for me and my time on Earth. Forgive me if I sound presumptuous, but I'm also totally clear about what you want me to do with my life. You want me to live it fully. You gave me Life obviously not with the intention I squander it. And the life you gave me goeswith  choice (as Alan Watts may have said). So when I choose to live my life fully (which is to say when I live my life fully), I honor you for giving me Life. The best way I know to thank you for what you've made possible, the most appropriate way I know to honor the gift of Life you've made available, whole, complete, and perfect, is simply to live my life fully and well - just ... like  ... that.

You create me, just as I create you - and although it's not politically correct  to say that, I get  how much you love me for saying it. Indeed, the mutual creation  you and I are, is the crucible from which all Life  springs.

I appreciate what you've given me, and I take responsibility for being what I'm becoming for you. No, I love  what you've given me, and I love the responsibility of being what I'm becoming for you. I want you to know I'm using it well.


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