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The Way of Prayer

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Prayer, the Way I Learned It and the Way I’m Learning It Now

I grew up with a fairly traditional Christian picture of prayer. You asked for things. You thanked God for things. You confessed things. There was a sense of speaking upward, of presenting requests and waiting to see what would be given or withheld. A lot of it felt like conversation with someone outside the situation—someone who could intervene if the request was clear enough or faithful enough. I still recognize that shape. It was the one I was handed, and for a long time it was simply how prayer worked.

I was baptized into the New Church (Swedenborgian) on May 21, 2017 by the late Rev. Alfred Acton in Summerville, SC. However, I was not new to the New Church. I have been an avid reader of Swedenborg since 1983 when I lived in New Jersey and worked at the Princeton University bookstore. The New Church understanding I’ve been sitting with since that time treats prayer a bit differently. It isn’t mainly about persuading God to change circumstances or to supply what we lack. It’s more about opening ourselves so that what is already good and true can have more room to work within us. The emphasis shifts from asking for outcomes to asking for a change in our own loves and understanding—so that we become more willing to receive what is useful and more able to act from it. God isn’t pictured as deciding whether to grant a request; the picture is closer to divine life constantly present, and prayer as the means of turning toward it instead of away from it.

The difference sounds clean when I write it down. In practice the shift has been slower and less tidy. The older form still rises first when something is hard or when I want a particular result. I catch myself framing the prayer as a request for intervention, then having to pause and reframe it as a request for clearer sight or a less resistant heart. That pause doesn’t always feel natural. It can feel like I’m doing prayer wrong, or like I’m abandoning something that once felt straightforward and personal. At the same time, the older approach sometimes leaves me waiting for an answer that doesn’t arrive in the form I expected, and the waiting itself becomes another thing to manage.

What I’m noticing is that both versions are still available to me, and they don’t cancel each other out as neatly as the explanations suggest. The traditional way still carries the directness I grew up with—the sense that I can bring something specific and be heard. The New Church way keeps returning me to the question of what I’m actually willing to let change in myself while I wait. Neither one has fully replaced the other yet. Most days I’m somewhere in the middle, using the language I know and trying to point it toward the understanding I’m still learning. The prayer itself hasn’t gotten simpler. It’s just become more honest about the fact that I’m still in the process of changing how I listen.

The Lord’s Prayer

The Lord’s Prayer has become the place where those two understandings meet most clearly for me. It was the prayer I learned first, the one that still rises without effort. At the same time, it keeps pointing me toward the things the New Church writings emphasize—thy kingdom come, thy will be done, forgive us as we forgive, lead us not into temptation. Saying it slowly doesn’t feel like presenting a list of requests. It feels more like turning my attention toward what I’m actually willing to receive and what I’m willing to release. Of all the prayers I know, it is the one that most reliably opens my heart instead of simply filling the silence. I still don’t always stay in that openness once the words are finished, but the prayer itself keeps offering the doorway.

Our Father, who art in the heavens,
Hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done
As in Heaven, so upon the Earth.
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our debts
As we also forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom,
And the power, and the glory
Forever and ever.
Amen.

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Wrestling with Jacob + Israel

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As I continue this journey into Logopraxis, it occurs to me that I’m going to have to change my entire approach to reading Sacred Texts. I don’t mean to say that I’ve been going about it in the wrong way, but I have been going about it in the usual way…and by the usual way, I mean intellectually—analyzing what I read and then trying to figure out what it all means.

The purpose of Logopraxis is to read Sacred Texts (both the Word and the Writings) with the purpose of experiencing what I read. As David Millar puts it in his Introduction to Logopraxis, “there comes a time where knowledge has to be lived.”

It’s not enough to know the Lord’s truth, I have to live it.

Logopraxis

Read the selected text completely in one sitting—without stopping to analyze, highlight or underline what I’ve read this first time. I’m not gathering information here. I’m allowing the text to reach out to me. What stands out? What grabs my attention?  The purpose, as Reverend Millar says, is to “keep our intellectual preconceptions on hold…to allow the Lord into the process while keeping our proprium’s usual patterns of reading text in check.”

  • Read with the intent of being spoken to, of being instructed by the Lord. Where is my attention going as I read these passages?
  • Journal the impressions that stand out.
  • Go through the text again, and highlight those things that stand out to me.
  • Take note of them each day as I go through my daily tasks.

My Process

Our first lesson comes from the Arcana Coelestia Volume 6, sections 4282—4293; Genesis 32:26-28. Firstly, I’m blown away by the sheer volume of internal revelation within a mere two verses of Scripture! Secondly, Swedenborg is not an easy read. Thankfully he’s repetitive.

In Genesis 32, Jacob wrestles with God and gets a new name: Israel. Initially, as I read this section of the Writings, I want to cling to that intellectual analytical approach I’m so fond of. But I consistently have difficulty doing it this way, and I’m beginning to realize it’s exactly as David Millar describes: it’s difficult because I’m trying to get it through “the power of my own reason.”

But from a Logopraxis perspective, here’s the basis of my problem: it is impossible for “the powers of intellect to penetrate of themselves into the things of Heaven. And that entrance into Spiritual and Celestial things only comes as a matter of life that the doctrine is from and of the Lord.” (quoting Reverend Millar again—he says it better, and if it ain’t broke…)

In other words, developing a personal relationship with the Lord by trying to understand Scripture through reason is not just difficult, it’s impossible. But this is how Bible studies are traditionally approached, at least in my experience. We read scripture, then sit around and talk about what we think it means and how to apply that speculation to our daily lives.

Approaching this section of the Writings from an intellectual perspective leaves me, frankly, wrestling with Jacob + Israel (the external vs. internal struggle). Once again, I’m trying to understand, through reason, the internal and external meanings of the names, the three Heavens and their correspondence to my regeneration, etc. Boy…old habits are hard to break!

My Impressions

So I re-focus, shift my attention, and continue reading. Here’s what stands out initially:

  • Temptation does not come to an end. It is ongoing.
  • There is an internal and eternal aspect of each of person
  • Jacob represents the external aspects
  • Israel represents the internal aspects
  • The Lord made His Human Divine through temptations and conflicts arising from those temptations. The Lord suffered temptations we cannot begin to imagine. Doing this re-ordered the spiritual world, both Heaven and hell.
  • Prevailing over temptations is what makes the spiritual man. Temptation is a necessary step in our regeneration.
  • There is a distinct difference between a representative Church and a representative of the Church.
  • The Ancient Church was a representative Church. They communicated directly with the Heavens.
  • A representative of the Church does not communicate internally but externally. This is allowed because man, without any communication with Heaven at all, would perish.
  • The descendants of Jacob are representatives of the Church. Internal knowledge was not given to them because they would have, in their lack of acknowledgement of holy things, profane them.
  • Those who are incapable of goodness and truth are kept far them to avoid profaning them.
  • The descendants of Jacob knew the Messiah would come, but thought it was to glorify them and rise them above all other men, not to save their souls.
  • The same is meant by the spiritual man and the Church because a spiritual person is a Church.

Surprisingly, when I read the text from the perspective of allowing it to speak to me, rather than analyzing it, the struggle of understanding Jacob + Israel was not at the forefront. The impression that gave me pause was regarding temptations. Temptations do not cease. Our ability to overcome them comes directly from the Lord. It is not something we do. It is something we allow Him to do.

Introduction to Logopraxis

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Correspondences

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What I Love About Correspondences

cor·re·spond·ence; (kôrəˈspändəns)
a close similarity, connection, or equivalence. synonyms include: correlation, agreement, consistency, compatibility, consonance, conformity, similarity, resemblance, parallel, comparability, accord, concurrence, coincidence.

Although this blog assumes you already know who Swedenborg is, I have friends who may read this and will have no idea about him. So I will occasionally write about cool stuff that I particularly love about Emanuel Swedenborg and his Writings. One of these things is the idea of correspondences.

One of the most unique, and for me truly fascinating, aspects of Emanuel Swedenborg’s theology is the idea of correspondences. The Swedenborg Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to the translation, promotion + distribution of the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, describes correspondences like this, “all of creation has a divinely established order that starts at the very top (the Lord) and extends down through the heavens and the world of spirits until it reaches the natural world, which is the level at which things have physical existence.” (1)

The Sun, Love, & Wisdom

My favorite example is that of the sun. The sun in the natural world radiates light + heat. We step outside into the light of day and view the world and feel the heat of the sun on our skin. But in the spiritual world, the sun corresponds to the “omnipresent radiance of the Lord’s Divinity.” In other words, His “divine love that permeates the universe is like the heat of the sun,” and His “divine wisdom that provides order to everything in the universe is equivalent to the light of the sun.” (1)

The natural sun is a lesser version of its spiritual counterpart – a less perfect version. This is true of all things in the natural world. In fact,  the spiritual is absolutely necessary in order for the natural to exist. If the spiritual were to be removed from its lesser counterpart, the lesser would become lifeless or dead. Like us – a spirit or soul contained within a physical body. It is our spirit that breathes life into our physical body. Without a spirit, we are a lifeless blob of flesh, organs, bones, and blood. But the appearance is that our body seems to be alive and functioning on its own. The same is true with the sun. The natural sun only appears to give life and is really nothing but a giant fireball in space. Swedenborg writes,

The activity of our physical sun is not autonomous but stems from a living force that emanates from the spiritual world’s sun.
Divine Love + Wisdom §157

So life doesn’t actually come from the natural sun, although it appears to. In reality it comes from the spiritual sun. It is the spirit which gives life. The Word provides us with several verses that tell us all about it.

The spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life.
Job 33:4

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
John 6:63

Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
2 Corinthians 3:6

Water & Truth

Another very cool (no pun intended) correspondence is that of water. I love this correspondence because water can take several forms, such as liquid, solid, or vapor, and each form has its own correspondence. Basically, water, in its liquid, flowing form = truth. Here are some Biblical examples:

But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.
John 4:14

The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
Genesis 1:2

But the man who is unclean and does not purify himself, that person shall be cut off from among the assembly, because he has defiled the sanctuary of the Lord. The water of purification has not been sprinkled on him; he is unclean.
Numbers 19:20

He gives rain on the earth, And sends waters on the fields.
Job 5:10

Therefore with joy you will draw water From the wells of salvation.
Isaiah 12:3

He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.
John 7:38

And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb.
Revelation 22:1

The Word

So why are these and all correspondences important? They’re important because everything in the natural world has a spiritual correlation, including the Bible. What this means is that there is a natural meaning to the Word, as well as a spiritual, or inner (deeper) meaning. Most Christians are very familiar with the natural letter of the word. We grew up reading Bible stories and memorizing verses. But only now have we been given access to the spirit of the Word, the life-giving meaning behind the letter.

Since the Word is inwardly spiritual and heavenly, it was written using nothing but correspondences; and when something is written by means of nothing but correspondences, its outermost written sense takes on the kind of style we find in the prophets and in the Gospels, a style that has divine wisdom and everything angelic hidden within it, even though it seems to be commonplace.
Sacred Scriptures §8

I think we can agree that most people recognize that the Word is full of symbolism, but no one has even an inkling as to the spiritual sense of the Word. Until now, no one understood that the spiritual sense is what breathes life into the Word, like our soul gives life to our body. Swedenborg, however, had his spiritual eyes opened and was permitted, in fact chosen by the Lord, to bring this revelation to us at last.

Why are we just now receiving this revelation of the spiritual meaning of the Word? Why has it taken so long? Well, in short, we, as a collective consciousness, had to be ready to receive it. Fascinated by correspondences? Want to learn more? Check out some helpful and fun-to-watch videos below.

Swedenborg + Life Videos on Correspondences 

The following videos are from Off the Left Eye, a YouTube video series produced by the Swedenborg Foundation that offers an in-depth look at how Swedenborg’s theological Writings apply to our day-to-day life.

Links + Sources
  1. Swedenborg Foundation on correspondences
  2. Swedenborg Study
Suggested Reading
  • Dictionary of Correspondences, by George Nicholson
  • Dictionary of Bible Imagery, by Alice Spiers Sechrist
  • Divine Love + Wisdom, by Emanuel Swedenborg
  • Sacred Scriptures, by Emanuel Swedenborg

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Logopraxis

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My Introduction to Logopraxis

logos (UK: /ˈloʊɡɒs, ˈlɒɡɒs/, US: /ˈloʊɡoʊs/; Ancient Greek: λόγος, from λέγω lego “I say”) is a term in western philosophy, psychology, and religion derived from a Greek word meaning  “word”, “speech”, “account”, “reason”, “proportion”, “discourse”.

praxis (from Ancient Greek: πρᾶξις, translit. praxis) is the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, embodied, or realized. “Praxis” may also refer to the act of engaging, applying, exercising, realizing, or practicing ideas.

Practicing the Word

Several years ago, while watching an episode of Off the Left Eye, the Swedenborg Foundation’s weekly webcast on YouTube, I heard the term Logopraxis from guest speaker Reverend David Millar, Director of Spiritual Studies at the Australian New Church College. The OTLE episode was How to Write the Word on Your Heart.

Logopraxis is explained as:

“Logopraxis simply means to apply the Word to life. The central focus for the work of Logopraxis is the application of Divine truths to the life of the mind in an effort to become more aware of the quality of one’s mental life through a regular active practice of self-examination.”
~ Rev. David Millar

My interest was piqued. I’d been thinking more frequently about how to make the study of Scripture more meaningful and how to really apply the Word to my daily life—a deeper way to examine my thinking, correct false beliefs, and connect with the Lord in a more profound and personal way—as Rev. Millar says, “making the Lord visible in our midst.”

I contacted Rev. Millar through his web site The Logopraxis Institute and signed up for my first session of Logopraxis — that was in 2018!

I won’t get into the methodology of the study—you can read about that on Rev. Millar’s web site. In fact, I encourage you to browse the web site and read about the framework of Logopraxis, and even take the time to watch the videos posted about the practice.

I’m very excited to participate in Logopraxis and with sharing my experiences here in The Cranium Cafe.

Logopraxis Links