The guest blogger was good enough to record what happened today. I just need to add that it was a sort of a theatrical moment – The Cardiac Surgeon approached me slowly and deliberately with a sad yet loving look in his eyes. He tells me that the anesthetist’s child is ill, that he, the cardiac surgeon, has kids as well and he has total empathy with the anesthetist, and me as well. The line of the day is his - “the only thing worse than heart surgery is cancellation of heart surgery.”

The lesson here for me is quite timely. I have been working on prayer because I really have no idea how to do it. People say that prayer is just talking to God. (as a side note, I am not a religious zealot of any stripe; I call God , as the regular reader may know, SOAPE – Source Of All Positive Energy – at least that is the way that I can get my head around God or a Higher Power).

So anyway, prayer is communication with God. So what kinds of prayers are there? I used to be good at Prayers of Negotiation I am in a jam; if you get me out of the jam, I will do a service for you. That did not seem to work, but interestingly enough I did get out of jams without asking.

Then I evolved to Prayers of Petition – I lay out a carefully laid out and reasonable request: I don’t want pain; I don’t want to die. That sort of thing. But, someone always hurts, someone always dies. I can say “Why me” but I can also say “Why not me”. The Prayers of Petition always make me uncomfortable - there is something about them not right.

Prayers of Thanksgiving are the Polite Prayers. You give me a silk scarf and I say thank you. I have a day of health and I thank God. Prayers of Thanksgiving are the Polite Prayers and they are humbling. They remind me that clean water, and the food in my pantry, and a warm house, and a safe street are not things that I have created or earned. They have been gifted to me and I have the moral responsibility to pass the gift on to others.

Does position matter when you pray? I am sure that some of the most rigorous prayers are done from all kinds of positions: prone in foxholes, kneeling in front of the toilet, driving in a blizzard, staring at an exam paper. I have never had to have been in a foxhole, but I have done the others. But I did one prayer a day kneeling. It was my way of showing my brain that there are energies and powers and spirits greater than myself out there.

Kneeling – maybe not so good when I have my surgery, so how about praying standing up? That was a revelation to me and, as crazy as it seems, standing up made me think of something for the first time and that was that you can do Prayers of Listening. I am not, of course, in any way, shape or form the first one to think of that, but somehow for me I saw it clearly for the first time. If I stand up and listen, I can maybe hear the Wisdom of the Ages, the Word of Allah, the Direction of God, the Voice of the River, or absorb even more energy from SOAPE.
All that happened today was that I did not get something I wanted, when I wanted it. It gives me the chance to finish tasks. It gives the chance to learn more about the health care system. It gave the anesthetist some piece of mind. And maybe it will help me hear just a little better.