{"id":181,"date":"2011-08-03T18:26:03","date_gmt":"2011-08-03T22:26:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/insweetcompany\/?p=181"},"modified":"2011-08-03T18:26:03","modified_gmt":"2011-08-03T22:26:03","slug":"praying-for-perfect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2011\/08\/praying-for-perfect.html","title":{"rendered":"Praying for Perfect"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIn my country, God is a part of our everyday life. … We live simply and close to nature.\u00a0 We grow the rice we eat. What is left over, we give to the duck in our yard. This duck lays the eggs we eat and also rids our garden of bugs so we grow better food. Everything depends on everything else. When you live this kind of existence … you understand how life is interconnected. You also learn how important it is to lend a hand to others, to help them evolve.<\/em> — Le Ly Hayslip, N SWEET COMPANY: CONVERSATIONS WITH EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN ABOUT LIVING A SPIRITUAL LIFE<\/p>\n

I recently had a conversation with an old friend about \u201cthis and that,\u201d what life is teaching us through our experiences, how — over time — things often seem to make greater sense than they did when we were in the thick of them. \u2018Yup,\u201d he said, \u201ceverything\u2019s perfect. Now that I understand that, I don\u2019t even pray for people anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though I believe his comment was intended to reinforce the idea that everything happens for a reason, what he said was disconcerting. On a personal level, \u201cperfect\u201d or not, there were times when his prayers would have been a comfort. On a more cosmic level, the level of \u201clessons to be learned,\u201d hard times are an opportunity for some of us to learn to pitch in and for others of us to learn to be gracious receivers.<\/p>\n

I also believe in the power of prayer, that it transforms both the \u201cpray-er\u201d and the \u201cpray-ee.\u201d I believe that when you make yourself receptive to\u00a0 God — in the giving or in the receiving — you not only lift yourself above the struggle and the chaos, you serve the Greater Good. There is satisfaction in being used like this — in being well-used, such comfort in the giving and receiving. It\u2019s a shame when any of us misses the opportunity.<\/p>\n

This idea that \u201ceverything is perfect\u201d is a hard thing to wrap your mind around. It\u2019s natural when we are confronted with pain and loss to question ourselves, others, the Universal Order, and God. \u201cWhere is the justice or the logic or the compassion or the goodness in this<\/em>,\u201d we think. \u201cWhat did I or they ever do to deserve this<\/em>?\u201d Over time we can find our ways through it, or at least take the edge off, but we may never know what about the situation was \u201cperfect.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where, I think, prayer comes in handy — our own payers and the prayers of others. If we don\u2019t achieve perfect understanding or make our lives perfect (by our standards or by someone else’s) prayer can ease our pain, can help us make peace, help us forgive, help us be more compassionate with ourselves and others. Maybe that\u2019s as close to perfect as we get.<\/p>\n

I, for one, need all the prayers I can get to make this happen!<\/p>\n

Your thoughts?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIn my country, God is a part of our everyday life. … We live simply and close to nature.\u00a0 We grow the rice we eat. What is left over, we give to the duck in our yard. This duck lays the eggs we eat and also rids our garden of bugs so we grow better…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":231,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[69,47,68],"class_list":["post-181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-divine-feminine","tag-le-ly-hayslip","tag-perfection","tag-prayer"],"yoast_head":"\nPraying for Perfect - In Sweet Company<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2011\/08\/praying-for-perfect.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Praying for Perfect - In Sweet Company\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cIn my country, God is a part of our everyday life. … We live simply and close to nature.\u00a0 We grow the rice we eat. What is left over, we give to the duck in our yard. This duck lays the eggs we eat and also rids our garden of bugs so we grow better…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2011\/08\/praying-for-perfect.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"In Sweet Company\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-08-03T22:26:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Margaret Wolff\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Praying for Perfect - In Sweet Company","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2011\/08\/praying-for-perfect.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Praying for Perfect - In Sweet Company","og_description":"\u201cIn my country, God is a part of our everyday life. … We live simply and close to nature.\u00a0 We grow the rice we eat. What is left over, we give to the duck in our yard. This duck lays the eggs we eat and also rids our garden of bugs so we grow better…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2011\/08\/praying-for-perfect.html","og_site_name":"In Sweet Company","article_published_time":"2011-08-03T22:26:03+00:00","author":"Margaret Wolff","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2011\/08\/praying-for-perfect.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2011\/08\/praying-for-perfect.html","name":"Praying for Perfect - In Sweet Company","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-08-03T22:26:03+00:00","dateModified":"2011-08-03T22:26:03+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/#\/schema\/person\/9e1d77d12de19dd0d4fbc84d1f7fc52a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2011\/08\/praying-for-perfect.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2011\/08\/praying-for-perfect.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2011\/08\/praying-for-perfect.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Praying for Perfect"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/","name":"In Sweet Company","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Margaret Wolff","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/#\/schema\/person\/9e1d77d12de19dd0d4fbc84d1f7fc52a","name":"Margaret Wolff","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/673\/67331f0571f27a0987e8cbfde3e832b4x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/673\/67331f0571f27a0987e8cbfde3e832b4x96.jpg","caption":"Margaret Wolff"},"description":"Margaret Wolff has a gift of luring people into becoming who they really are. She speaks and writes about things women care about: how to make our lives and our work be about what we value most; how to navigate challenge and change; how to live with integrity and grace, to look at error in ourselves and others in a forgiving way and view life as an invitation to transform ourselves into instruments for the Greater Good. \"I laughed, I cried, I was silent, I cheered. Most of all, I loved.\" Spoken by a woman at In Sweet Company Retreat, these words express what women experience when Margaret engages them in dynamic, soul-searching conversations about their lives. Margaret holds degrees in art therapy, psychosynthesis, and leadership and human behavior. Her work takes her to universities, to conferences and retreat settings, to living rooms and board rooms -- wherever women gather. Her articles, essays, and stories are featured in numerous magazines; her women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s spirituality retreats are held throughout the U.S. Margaret\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s last book, In \"Sweet Company: Conversations With Extraordinary Women About Living a Spiritual Life\" (Jossey Bass), is a collection of intimate conversations she had with 14 famous women of various ages, faiths, and backgrounds about how their spirituality nourishes them and serves as a steady compass for their decision-making. Olympia Dukakis, Riane Eisler, Zainab Salbi, Margaret Wheatley, Sri Daya Mata, Lauren Artress, and other women artists, activists, religious leaders, and visionary thinkers shared their lives with her. You can too!","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/author\/mwolff"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/231"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions\/182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}