The memories I keep.

I remember graffiti on a practice room wall in the Music Dept. at UMass:
"You Cannot Petition the Lord With Prayer."
"You Can. You Can Petition the Lord With Prayer."
"I agree."
"I concur."

First, I had to look up what concur meant. Then I thought about it. And still think about it: can you petition the Lord with prayer? Imagine. They were writing about a Doors tune and I took it as a calling to Truth.

My soul is in the Lost and Found right now. (No, I'm not whining; I'm only stating a fact. And I will begin a creative project and am beginning to weigh what's important.) And I didn't take it to the Lord in the prayer circle this past Sunday between rehearsal and service. Another paid singer in the choir was thanking God for his 2 back-to-back shows this summer. He was studying the Bible and praying and God rewards, with acting gigs apparently, those who do that. Well, I'd better crack that Bible cause God ain't rewarding me with acting work. And I ain't asking Him. I mean Her. I mean It. Hell, I ain't even asking Casting Directors at this point. But, that's not what I'm getting at here.

What I'm getting at here is that if God rewards people with work, is God punishing me with no work? My current answer: no way. Absolutely not. You gotta be kidding. The theory I'm testing is that God is concerned only with my spiritual life and is concerned with my physical/ mental/ emotional lives only if they have a direct impact on my spiritual life. Pat Robertson reads the Bible and is rich. You mean to tell me that God gave Pat Robertson his own TV show and money because he reads the Bible?

This is from Gordon Atkinson in his blog:

"About the best you could do was spend as much time as possible hanging around with Jesus, hoping you would be there when he did whatever he was going to do. Most of the time, it ended up being a surprise, and frequently people discovered that their deepest need was something they could not have imagined."

So, I'm going to continue to hang around with Jesus (more about that some other time), save for my new computer, travel, visit actorsequity.com, take work that interests me, do my best to earn a bunch of money that supports my lifestyle (It's NOT a choice! I was born spending!) and do my best to help everyone around me enjoy their lives.

And then, maybe I'll discover that my deepest need is something I could not have imagined.

Amen.