Prayer: why, what for and how?

### Summary

The video transcript captures a heartfelt discussion among a group of women from different regions, reflecting on their experiences, thoughts, and feelings about various topics, including spirituality, prayer, and the role of religious figures in modern society. The conversation begins with casual check-ins about their current lives, weather, family gatherings, and health issues, before transitioning into deeper themes such as the significance of prayer, the impact of the Pope and other spiritual leaders, and the personal journeys each participant has taken regarding faith and spirituality. They discuss their beliefs about the role of prayer, the importance of community, and how music can serve as a form of spiritual expression. The participants share personal anecdotes, emphasizing the need for genuine connections and the power of positive energy in navigating the complexities of life.

### Highlights-

🌍 A global perspective: Women from different continents share their unique experiences, highlighting both commonalities and differences in their lives.-

📖 The power of literature: Several participants mention how they use books and stories as a means of escape and comfort during challenging times.-

🙏 The complexity of prayer: The group discusses various interpretations of prayer, emphasizing its personal nature and the importance of authenticity in spiritual practices.-

🎶 Music as a spiritual medium: There’s a strong consensus on the unifying power of music, with participants reflecting on how it serves as a form of prayer and connection to the divine.-

🕊️ The role of spiritual leaders: The conversation touches upon the significance of figures like the Pope, exploring their influence and the expectations placed upon them in a rapidly changing world.-

🌱 Personal growth and reflection: Participants share their journeys of self-discovery, questioning dogmas, and the importance of nurturing their own spirituality.-

💬 A call for community: The dialogue emphasizes the need for genuine connections among individuals, fostering a sense of belonging and mutual support.

### Key Insights-

🌐 **Global Perspectives on Common Experiences**: The women’s check-ins reveal that despite geographic differences, there are shared struggles and joys, such as health issues, family gatherings, and the passage of time. This highlights the interconnectedness of human experiences and the importance of empathy across cultures.-

📚 **Literature as a Coping Mechanism**: Multiple participants discuss their reliance on books to navigate personal challenges, demonstrating how stories can provide solace and perspective. This suggests that literature serves as an essential tool for mental health and personal growth, allowing individuals to escape reality and explore new ideas.-

🙏 **The Nature of Prayer**: The conversation around prayer reveals differing beliefs about its efficacy and purpose. Some view it as a personal connection to the divine, while others question its role in influencing external circumstances. This discourse emphasizes the evolving nature of spirituality and the necessity for individuals to define their own practices.-

🎶 **Music as a Universal Language**: The participants unanimously agree on the power of music to evoke emotions and foster community. By discussing how music transcends barriers, they underscore its ability to connect people spiritually, regardless of their individual beliefs or backgrounds.-

🕊️ **Spiritual Leadership in a Changing World**: The group reflects on the role of spiritual leaders like the Pope, considering their responsibilities amid societal challenges. This insight illustrates the tension between traditional religious institutions and modern expectations, highlighting the need for relevant and compassionate leadership.-

🔍 **Personal Journeys of Faith**: Each woman shares her unique experience with faith, often expressing a sense of rebellion against dogma. This highlights the journey of self-exploration and the importance of finding personal meaning in spirituality, rather than adhering strictly to institutional beliefs.-

🤝 **The Importance of Community Support**: Throughout the dialogue, there is a strong emphasis on the need for community. The women recognize the value of being able to share experiences, support one another, and engage in meaningful conversations, illustrating how community can bolster resilience and promote healing.In conclusion, the video captures a rich tapestry of insights as the participants navigate complex themes of spirituality, personal growth, and community connection. Their discussions reflect a modern understanding of faith that emphasizes personal experience, the power of literature and music, and the significance of collective support in an ever-evolving world.

women matters meet for the last time in February I don’t hope I hope not the last time forever it’s not but in February because February is almost over February 2025 it’s incredible how the year flies and in all continents it seems to be now we have South Africa Africa Europe and America here and it seems to be the same thing everywhere only that the seasons are different we are still in winter going into spring while honey is still in summer and says that the time is Shifting you see it at night that it’s alittle bit cooler at her end do you want to start Hy not necessarily necessarily the weather report but yeah I was just sharing that we can see the sun is coming up later so there’s definitely shift up happening um and we’ve had very very hot days and strong winds and at night more chilly sometimes I’m H I’m here in Cape Town South Africa I actually spoke to G trout we had a lovely convers long conversation with G trout on Saturday it was really lovely to connect like that with her she um also always busy as youknow I don’t think she might be able to join us today she said she has something that starts in between so she can join us but it was wonderful to have just a casual chat with her outside of the group as well and yes and then after that I also watched um an amazing series about the unreal wonders of the world or nature in the world it’s just beautiful so I I was thinking a lot of you because they showed so much of parts of Russia that one hardly ever see elsewhere and it’s so beautiful it’s such untouchednature it’s just gorgeous beautiful so that also made me think of why is it that we focus always on what’s wrong in the world and we don’t really appreciate all these Wonders that we have around us we don’t have to pay for them they don’t cost us anything and just to get yeah takes us into another state of mind as well and I just had a session with a friend of mine in the US that I haven’t spoken to for a while was also good to just to be present to her experience of what’s currently happening there as welland to just hear about her experience un so here I am and I’m passing to you Mona thank you uh it’s still chilly in austrialia so I’m still wearing warm clothes uh we had a birthday party yesterday for my older daughter who is now 50 55 54 and my grand my youngest grandchild who is 22 and we had it at our house and it was just yeah it was very nice and we were eight people because most of them have the flu so the flu is going around in Austria like crazy but it’s not an epidemic it’s just that almost everysecond person is sick and we still don’t have a government and then now have have resumed negotiations as they did uh I don’t know how two months ago uh slightly different background people but the same people in the front and I don’t know how they will manage and people are getting fed up in Austria because they were elected to govern and not just to negotiate and negotiate and want more and more and more many Mysteries and so we are really in a not very good mood in all yeah so I have resorted to Fantasyliterature again just to escape uh The Misery all right otherwise yeah I’m guess I’m fine and I’m passing on to Christine what would we do without books to distract us and entertain us right I’m a big fan of Louise Penny who uh is a Canadian author and she she’s got a series I think this is her 19th or 20th book They’re they’re light Mysteries they’re always the same characters she’s a wonderful author if I recommend her highly so I’ve got her latest book and it’s just the kind of thing I can’t you know I I love herwriting I can’t put it down so it is a great distraction and as I said you know I’m helping Tom recover also working um you know trying to stay active with friends and catch up with people and keeping tabs with my siblings um just seems like there’s never enough time to get it all done the days do go by really quickly um this is the time of year no you guys probably don’t want college basketball but this is the time of year when it gets exciting and um my my college team is right up there at thetop uh in the country so I’m so excited to uh see what happens as tournaments start um so that’s fun again another good distraction and uh I won’t talk about politics because it gets me very upset and and angry and I can’t do it so I’m I’m going to jump over Leap Frog over that one and I will pass on to Victoria hello everybody um sorry for my disruptive behavior um I was trying to make it as little disruptive as possible um I’m I’m decided early this morning to to go up to Los Angeles and so I’ve gotlike a zillion things to do but I didn’t want to miss all of you um I and good news I mean I’m glad to hear that Tom is um coming out of the this ordeal Christine first of all um glad to hear it and actually if there if there weren’t a topic well I’m still not sure what the topic is but um The Times They are changing um is that the topic um the but I I’ve been thinking a lot about Pope Francis and um I see him as the uh liken Star Wars uh Obi-Wan Kenobi you’re our only hope is the line from Star Wars and um that’s how I feelabout Pope Francis I’m not as you know I’m not um like a Bonafide Catholic although I do go to daily mass but I I’ll never join the church or any church for that matter um but I feel like he’s he’s the the he the world really needs him right now as a counterbalance to this this um the the evil empire to use the Star Wars imagery um and so and I’ve been really shocked the last couple days that every Mass I’ve been to they have forgotten to put them on the they read these prepared prayers um every day in mass that that they’realways good you know they’re always they cover what’s going on in the world but if if there’s something really current then the priest has to actually remember and in the last couple days I’ve actually like yell yelled out very very disruptively um during the prayer time you know about Pope Francis um so that’s been kind of discouraging for me that the idea that I mean that should be foremost and as I said I’m not even Catholic so like what’s going on with the people are kind of seem to be likein a days or something um anyway so I’ve been thinking a lot about the power of prayer and um and I was praying for Tom so that that but um anyway we don’t have to talk about that but I I that’s sort of what’s been on my mind the last the last few days um and um yeah that’s probably my check-in it’s the weather if we’re doing weather reports the weather’s really beautiful as you can see I’m been fighting to get the Sun out of my eyes um and that’s why I decid it was a good day to go that there’s a big openingtonight at The Getty Museum in Los Angeles and I’m on I’m on their official press list um and it’s uh an exhibition that’s organized by the The Muse D in Paris and the Getty and the Art Institute of Chicago so it’s a really big major it’s it’s a exhibition of um Gustav kyot the the impressionist artist who he was kind of ignored he’s he’s considered second rung but I always thought he was fabulous and so I’m really glad they’re doing a huge exhibition and of course to be totally like politicallyuran um the curators I’m curious to see the show because I know his work I I’ve seen a lot of it in Paris but um they’re focusing on the male body so um uh he because the that’s you know has never been really looked at it’s you know with impressionism it’s either Landscapes or you know whatever downtown Paris or women and so I’m really intrigued to see what the show is going to be because there over a hundred works so it’s um significant so it’ll be interesting anyway um so if I’m kind of like revvedup because as Christine Knows only too well um that it’s going to Los Angeles is like going to the Moon I mean it’s it’s no matter what time of day you go it’s it’s a big traffic and um but the weather’s good so so I will um pass on to you Heidi yeah thank you uh I heard that Pope Francis is quite ill he is in the jell Hospital in Rome oh yeah you’re near him well pray go visit him no I don’t go to them nobody I think is allowed to do that really inclined to do that but I heard the news and youknow he would be needed probably and a person very ill in the hospital is not really um very powerful to do anything I think you know so anyway that’s that’s why I’m praying for it recovery yeah yeah as for my check in yeah I’m fine I I only astonished how time passes how many crazy things uh appear in the world come and going one over the other that the the most gracious thing of the day before yesterday you have already forgotten because the next one is coming so it’s I’m I’m sitting and wonderingshaking the head you know I would need um a machine to do that all the time but I’m I refuse to be too much um bothered by all that and I have chosen to sit back and watch it and see how it will work out we in Germany had elections yesterday and we will have a similar situation as in in Austria I guess so what is is so yeah as a topic for today I don’t really know what to to say we could also talk about the necessity of having somebody who is holding a peace like the pope is supposed to do or the Dalai Lamado we need the figures and what can they do that would be interesting to me to ask these questions are they really able to do anything or how is peace happening doesn’t it need to happen inside of ourselves first before we uh ask that the whole world makes Peace by still beating up each other as it is the habit lately I don’t know that could be a topic we could talk about if not I’m open to everything else well I’d like to just um I think that’s a very important important um subject that you just brought up Heidi because I thinkit’s actually it’s sort of like the for me like the topic of prayer that whom does the prayer help I mean if God if you believe in God then um God is omnipotent and God does whatever God wants to do and is not necessarily going to be um you know like writing down how many people how many people have voted for a partic have prayed for a particular outcome um but it feels so um wholesome and nourishing I mean I’m speaking from my own experience to pray like I prayed for Tom and now I’m praying for the PO I mean Ipray for lots of people and lots of things all the time um but that sense of that it it it just feels wholesome like I’m I’m in and in my Buddhist um song as I’ve had a a big binge Buddhist binge this past week um that just happened because um my two main teachers um both started classes and there was a weekend an all- weekend retreat online um of one of them and they had a celebration of 40 years since their Center started yesterday afternoon so it’s been like this this kind of um just happened thatway because of the schedule um and that sense that’s on zoom and you’re all on zoom and I’ve never met any of you in the flesh and yet I feel like there’s a real Bond of love that holds us together and and care and compassion that we really are family even if um you know some of you have met in person but I haven’t met any of you yet and and it’s the same with my Buddhist group they’re based in um in Cambridge Massachusetts so so who knows if I’ll meet them or not um and yet there’s this especially with thisweekend retreat that we had there was this for me a palpable sense of community and what tikon calls interbeing so I feel like that is an important topic in the sense of yeah the the pop has been railing against all the world’s ills since he became the pope well long before he became the pope when he was uh Cardinal of of um of Buenos Iris I I saw an amazing interview with him where he really called out the whole world for um what he calls the new religion of narcissism and um and consumerism andthings like that so I feel like it’s like they’d say about John the Baptist you know the voice calling crying in the wilderness that yes the pope can’t do anything and yet it’s I feel it’s so critical to have a voice out there that people actually listen to which because of his position people listen to him whether they like it or not he’s he’s he’s there no one’s going to listen to me or any of us in on that level of the the whole globe and it pulls to me it pulls together a kind of an atmosphere where there yes there isstill good evil will will not Prevail good will still Triumph in the end and um so I think it’s essential that there be voices like that even if they seem impotent in the sense of like you know they’re not going to influ maybe they won’t influence World politics at all so far that’s been the case and yet maybe those of us who are it begin it does begin in the heart anyway I’m talking way too much it’s I guess it’s the coffee I’ll be quiet now but you have raised the hand yeah I just wanted to uh check infor Lorraine she may be visiting a a home that she put a um a bid on so she’s in the process of buying a home a condo and so I know she’s been going through a lot having inspections and negotiations and stuff like that so that’s a positive thing hopefully you know in another week or two she’ll have gone through that uh purchasing process yeah and I as you were talking Victoria I was uh reminded of the book that I’m reading it’s called The gry Wolf and there’s this um kind of metaphor I don’t know if it’s a metaphor what the similarI don’t know what the word is but um this is first people’s um traditions in Canada so the First Peoples have this story of two wolves and you you greet One gray wolf and the gray wolf is the one who is strong and compassionate and wise and patient um and caring and then the other wolf is a black wolf and that wolf is vengeful spiteful um impulsive and the story was which which wolf Will Survive which one is going to make it and the answer uh is it depends which one you feed so I I really like that it gave me uh areason to think that through and and remember we need to feed all that posit positivity whether it’s through our communities our prayers whatever it is and I think the pope for me just REM reminds me of our higher selves you know he’s just a good example of trying to reach for our higher selves and not get lost in all the base uh instincts of human beings so that’s why his voice to me is important it’s it’s a reminder and it it it breaks through all the other crap yeah well I’m wondering about prayingum I guess it does something for you um but I wonder and I’m sure I’m remembering Ken Wilbur correctly uh that we have to be aware of magical thinking uh that we want to change something by praying um that we want to have influence by praying on what is and to me the pope he’s a old man he’s 88 I believe he has been sick for a long time and I wonder why people refuse to let him go because there will be another Pope and I am not very um impressed by the Catholic of by the institution of the Catholicchurch because uh if they really treat women as secondary and uh not being able to be in contact with God or whatever they call the higher being um so I really uh haven’t been brought up in a Catholic faith I sort of imag emancipated from depending on Catholic Catholic rules and I I uh I don’t know how to uh how to formulate it uh praying uh to me praying is just being there with all your essence and uh I don’t use words in in praying like uh uh like people pray that the weather will be fine next weekendbecause they have a party and things like that um but to send good thoughts and even if there are uh with regards to the hope that he can let go more easily and yeah I I I wouldn’t pray for him to prolong his suffering which is actually uh what people do by wanting him to go on and on because being in the hospital he isn’t influential anymore and as far as I know as far as I believe right now you need a strong Pope to counter what is going on in the world anyway so I have mixed feelings about praying Victoria as you probablynoticed but I may be wrong it’s it’s not it’s just my personal opinion yeah that’s about all but I think it’s an interesting topic because I read about people who refuse that when they are in the hospital that people pray for them because that’s a a bad sign if people have to pray for them and uh so this is rather funny um but other people of course are very appreciative of being prayed for but and what is it praying you send positive uh vibrations in a c Direction maybe I don’t know it’s it’s Victoria what ispraying what is your mental state When you pray well I have a billion things to say but I’m conscious of the fact that um honol Heidi need to speak and then I could talk for days so I I’ll I’ll speak shortly but I I want to be deferential to honol and Heidi unless you two don’t want to say anything but I’m sure you do you are waiting okay okay Victoria you’re most welcome to go Ahad I’ll drop in off I would like to say something to this because we know about what can said the three face three faces of God and there are surely threedifferent ways of praying one is to pray to God no when to to you I speak with you and one is to to find God in yourself that would be the meditations no and uh what was the third one to talk about uh the things you know so I think praying can be understood in many different ways and uh and it’s not necessarily magic um magic belief yeah if you think uh I pray for for tomorrow that’s good weather I mean yeah okay that’s is this a prayer there more when I say oh I would like to have a parking spot Universe please give me a parkingspot I wouldn’t call that prayer okay either H or Victoria why do you make me smile with that one yeah I for me personally I don’t have any connotation to it because I think it’s very deeply personal thing for for people how they feel about that I personally have maybe just because of my background and my my rebeling against dogma of the church and things like that that for me it’s like you said there are many different ways of people experiencing it and they will most probably tell us all the different kind of experiencethat they experience when they do do that and why they do that but just from a general point of view is to the one that for me is the most important of the three that you’re speaking about one in yourself to to connect with the divine within yourself and not to transfer it outward the expectation somebody else must sort out the problems so if you look at the problems in the world right now so if we pray for in yours case now Victoria you said Pope Francis is that so we that human beings other human beings 8billion of us don’t have to do anything this poor man must must hold us all together or the Dil Llama Or whoever it just doesn’t make sense for me because we are 8 billion of us on the planet and each responsible for our own for our own well-being and and then obviously then of others as well because we are all interconnected so in that sense for me that I don’t resonate with something like that to expect one even if it’s a powerful person to fix the problems of the world or to influence it on anylevel but I do feel there are lots of people in the world right now who are putting in that positive energy you know that putting putting out that positive thoughts um just to give you a short um to share shortly what my friend and I discussed was exactly this polarization in the US and I don’t want to go into politics but she said she does want to choose between these two things she rather would send just love to everybody and she says she’s been frowned upon when she does that but for that’s her way to share toremind people that’s close to her and around her that we can choose love we don’t have to go into this into the fight the fighting and the you know the polarization whatever else is going on or give it more energy rather than sending love to it and her s making sure that she herself is in a state of love that she doesn’t go into judgment and fear and the like so just to share that with you as well yeah that’s in terms of praying for the pope it’s I guess I guess what I’m feeling in my heart is just this senseof um the it’s not it’s not magical thinking yeah that I think that’s that’s that’s been since time immemorial the the sort of the pitfall of prayer as it’s perceived this idea it is magical thinking that somehow um I mean I I had so so many cases of little tiny silly prayers um especially when I lived in Vienna for some reason I guess it was because beatric was a baby so there was a lot I don’t know life was very turbulent and things I remember once um she lost one of her mittens and we were in the we went to someopening at some Museum or gallery or something and it was snowing very hard and um and I suddenly noticed that one of her mittens was gone she had one you know one hand and the other was Bare and I pray I prayed to find the other Mitten and you know and then miraculously you know it was you know was at some point we retraced our steps and um and you know there was in in the midst you know but it’s this the kind of thing where I remember many times in my life where it’s been something very trivial andsomething small but there’s something I don’t know why there’s something kind of but that feels more like a game almost and the thrill of the answered prayer as it were um but I think in the it’s I know I mean that my my Buddhist Studies have have really Amplified the way I’ve I’ve anyway looked at prayer I think prayer in a traditional Christian context um can be fraught with a lot of um lot of sort of magical thinking um in the Buddhist context because there is no such thing as prayer in that sensebecause there is Buddhism is um well except for Tibetan Buddhism but like the the Buddhism I’ve been mostly studying vas there is no God it’s not about it’s not theistic at all um and so the practice of of there are these four Heavenly abodes they’re called which are loving kindness compassion appreciative Joy or sympathetic Joy depending on how you translate it that’s like the joy in someone else’s happiness that you’re happy that someone else has H is happy and then equinity they’re called TheHeavenly the four Heavenly abodes and so um Buddhists practice with certain phrases and and it’s simply that sense of um wanting the good it’s not there’s no outcome that’s expected or even it’s not it’s not prayer in that sense and I feel like that’s actually the way you know I do believe in God and I do believe in an omnipotent God and yet like job says in the Book of Job he says even if you even if you SL lay me I’m going to trust in you and that’s the way I feel about God like if God strikes me dead right thisminute I’m okay with it actually it would be nice but that’s another subject um but this this sense of being held that and I don’t know all the answers and I don’t know what’s going to happen with the world and I I have no power what I can do is try to embody The Good the positive the wholesome and I think that’s what you’re saying hon um what what all of you are saying this just this sense that since since I’m here in this world and and this is what I came to after after my husband died because I just wanted to die I was veryangry at God I hated God for a really long time I never lost my faith because I it’s so core to um who I am and I don’t know why that is either I wasn’t raised in any church oh that’s something I wanted to ask actually just out of curi the um were all of you did all of you have a an upbringing in in in the church in some church or did um and I know yeah and so hun Heidi also um it depends what you mean by it U my parents certainly were in the Protestant church and I had to go to the confirmation class but after that I sortof never went again yeah but that’s what I meant child I meant be like from your parents yeah yeah but it was not really very strong it was not um I don’t feel it like having been uh indoctrinated by by any church uh things not really I had to go there but that’s what you do but not you know I I wasn’t pushed into any believing stuff no right right no no I was just curious about the background because like my friend um uh Alfred was who’s Jewish uh by Heritage um was raised as a total literally atabala razza like he didn’t know anything about anything I had to when I met him I had to teach him about his own tradition I teach him about Moses and all this stuff um so he was literally a blank slate like and and his family celebrated Christmas you know it was just everything was totally secular like they they had the Christmas tree but they they were you know by Blood they were Jewish but there was no he had no knowledge of anything of any religion so that’s what I mean in terms of um not indoctrination but just um that you knowbecause honol you said you were you know you rebelled against so it’s that sense of like there’s there’s something um like all the things I mean our parents raise us with certain ideas or certain values and then there’s that do we rebel against them or do we adhere to them or do we simply just let them drift away and we just do our own thing that that that’s part of the sort of our formation that I was just curious because um yeah let us talk about that yeah um I was uh when I went before I started school I was Christian so Iremember the water running down because I was already uh 5 years old and my grandmother went with me because my father considered it was more convenient for me to have a c a religion because he was a Protestant but he didn’t adhere to any faith and they married as Catholics but I wasn’t Christian until before I went to school so it was just more convenient for a child to adhere to a certain religion and I stayed with it uh until about 15 and then I had a a very weird experience during a confession becausethe the priest knew much more about my about sins than I did because I had no idea uh what he was really talking asking me about and I decided that’s not for me me anymore so and my mother uh I went also to the Maran youth yunga Marian youth group where we had a light blue scarf around and and a very wonderful way to tie it and she sent me to uh summer camp and uh the nun let me scrub all the toilets and I just scrubed them okay if don’t if a toilet is scrubbing I scrub it and then she told my mother well sheisn’t as proud as she seems to be and then my mother decided to take me out right away so she she yeah so it’s not the faith it’s the institution and the people who carry the institution which is just yeah miserable most of the time and that’s a shame because it could be much different it could be really a community of people and uh yeah that’s the way it is and Buddhist uh Buddhist faith is something I have been practicing for a couple of decades now but it’s not a religion to me it’s just re reallypractical applied uh living and uh yeah that’s the way it is for me okay it’s interesting you bring up the cleaning of the toilets because yesterday afternoon was um the celebration of the 40th anniversary of of this um this Buddhist Meditation Center in Cambridge which as I said I’ve never seen and who knows if I ever will um so they were inviting it was hybrid there were people online and people in the space and they were inviting people if at one point um who were members or volunteers of the center to share ifthey wanted to and this one woman um you know so people were saying yes I joined such and such a year and da d da and then this one woman um raised her hand and she said um she said I’m a volunteer at the center and she said and uh she said I clean the toilets all the toilets and I scrub all the floors and it was so funny because she said it I guess if one were cynical one could think she almost said it with pride cuz I saw one of the teachers as this woman said this kind of almost well maybe I was imagining it butalmost looked to me like she kind of recoiled like oh why would you bring the toilets into this space but um but it’s funny that you said that monia because I thought at that moment I thought this could go both ways it could be her pride in how humble she is like she’s proud proud to be humble that she tells this this large August assembly of people um yes you know I know that lots of you she didn’t say this but you know the implication like I know that lots of you are very wealthy and you have endowed this Centerso it can continue in perpetuity um and I can’t do that but I I I’m making this all up but I clean the toilets like would you do that that’s what I was just thinking the back of my mind I thought it could um because I just did another Buddhist class on um on the idea of generosity what is generosity which could be another topic It’s really because that’s so tangled like do you are you generous because you have an expectation of what the other the the recipient of your generosity is going to um Express or feel or are yougoing to get something back you know I mean so all these things are very Tangled but um anyway that’s another subject but it just made me laugh because I I just heard about this toilet thing yesterday and I was kind of reflecting on it I wrote that down because it would be a wonderful topic what is generos what I wanted to say too that’s it’s a great topic yeah also the topic could also be what is what does it mean to be humble uh and what does it mean to surrender as it is always demanded in certain songsand in certain religion Serv so uh we have yeah we could talk about lot of of lot of what I would like to say still we have about 15 minutes I haven’t heard a lot of H and of Christine I would give you a little bit more space and explore what you want to contribute I’ll mute myself so and hi do you too I haven’t heard you about pray you go first what came up what I wanted to ask as well maybe related to what you just said um Victoria and and you Mona as well is about the indoctrination and a friend ofmine calls it contamination you’ve been contaminated and that made me make me reminded me of a question of when you speak about Christian for example like mon you were five when Oaths and promises are made on behalf of you and you had no say in it for me that that is something that and and I my own story with religion is quite interesting because my ex-husband when I married him he was not in in was not a minister a priest he was not a priest and then one married he became a priest I even paid for hisstudies crazy and but he said he would never go and you know he would never do do it but that’s regardless now of what happened but there I discovered a lot about what during his studies because I helped him a lot sometimes when he was studying Greek and youw and all sorts of things um and there was lots of missing links that I discovered while just being present to what he was studying which made me question lots and lots of things so that’s why I’m against the Dogma like you said mon the faith it’s not aboutthe faith in the Divine or the sacred it’s about the dogma and all these rules and these things and taking Parts out of the Bible um men decided that take Parts out and I even questioned my ex-husband on how can you then stand for something when you know it’s not the whole thing anyway you know for example so where I come from is like the Dogma the the all these rules and it’s me it’s it’s a a human being deciding these things it’s not the sacred for me a sacred is a very personal deep experience and but whatever we call itthe universe the Divine the sacred God doesn’t matter it’s feeling the sacredness and then when we come together with others like we are here now sensing and feeling the sacred in each other and and being aware of that that it’s alive in all of us and it’s our embodiment of it that’s more important than anything else all these rules and stuff then just to give you some perspective of I come over I said I’m a reibel I like that that it’s almost like this this is our prayer group us meeting together and beingcombining our Spirits right it doesn’t have to be informed by special rules or beliefs it’s really just finding each other uh and connecting with each other so um yeah I I I don’t practice religion at this point but I’m always trying to look for better ways to experience uh spirituality in the Divine without getting caught in religious dogma and um it’s hard it’s Challen alling um and I was fortunate that the uh the Lutheran faith that I was brought up in was really Progressive and welcoming of all people of all womeneverything so there wasn’t a lot of exclusionary beliefs but still you know it’s it still is I’ve always been that person who was like no you’re not going to tell me what to think or what to believe thank you but I don’t want just because you say it I’m not going to buy it so I’ve always been that kind of person and uh yeah For Better or For Worse so I’m always trying to find my own way of making sense of it and I have a funny story our younger daughter um older daughter got confirmed and the younger daughter went through the wholeconfirmation classes which is two years uh weekly for two years um and when it came to getting conf confirmed she said no not going to do it and we didn’t know that she was thinking about this but she very strongly said you know I can’t stand up in front of people and recite the Apostles Creed uh when I don’t believe what I would be saying so I’m not going to do that and I was a little horrified um but my husband was like yeah good for you so we actually talked to the uh pastor of the church who’s a woman and um shewas okay with it she said you know she asked good questions in class she’s you know she’s thinking it’s not just a knee-jerk reaction she’s thinking about this and it’s okay if at this point in time she cannot you know profess that uh as her beliefs so it it was just an interesting exercise for all of us to say you know how much can we recite things because we’re supposed to how much do we really believe and my daughter I know part of what she was battling was just the black and whiteness of religious Dogma like theworld she goes well the world what we know the world wasn’t made in seven days yes Alexis we know the world wasn’t made in seven days you don’t have to take it literally um but she wasn’t at a place at age 13 where she was going to recognize the Spirit uh behind it all and not not drill down into the literal interpretation of things that comes with time and uh a lifetime really of trying to separate that out so I I feel like I’m always in that mindset of trying and distinguish what what are my values I’mI’m really grateful for the values that I developed uh by going to church as a young person but now that I’m an adult and I can see things a little differently I’m also wary of people telling me um this is what you need to believe and you need to believe it this way so yeah it’s been an interesting Journey if you want to if you want to hear my story I went to the children’s uh Sunday School in this church and there we had stories and little pictures and we put put them in books and so and I had the impression that religion isjust a story you know they have this story that story and I was really never much interested I had went there yeah but not in the bible to read the Bible now so we had I think only one year of confirmation class and I didn’t like the priest at all and so it was a con convenience when you had the confir then you go get good uh gifts I got my first tape recorder and that was a beginning of the musical uh development because then I could hear the the the the pieces all the time I studied for the firsttime I um I was so in love with Elia from mlon and I heard it so often and I sang it in the choir and that was for me if if I see it from now that is church for me to sing to do music in the church but all this other stuff what they tell you what you need to do and not to do and I remarkably I’m illiterate about the Bible I I just don’t know anything I mean sometimes I read a little bit but I I don’t know I was reconciled with uh Christianity uh by Jordan Peterson I think I told you this when he did the uhbiblical lectures I learned something about the Bible and I like that a lot but you know then I did the choir master in the church and I went there only for for that and I didn’t like the the hierarchies you know you had to do what you know they were friendly but it was very clear that you have nothing to say in this in this place and so yeah I did my my job and I hoped I would get some recognition no and after almost 20 years I said goodbye for this miserable really miserable recompensation of very veryvery little money was which was little more than the the gasoline which I needed to go there so I thought why do I do that and that certainly didn’t help with getting reconciled with church but at the same time uh this spiritual path started when I had a friend she was very much in esoteric and she she how do you say ignited me now she invited me she initiated me in thinking about these things unfortunately she is dead for a long time but that was the beginning and then you look here you look there meetthese people meet this and it was always a research and it still is and I’m very confident that there is something which is bigger than me I have no idea what it is who when when you can say if you can say who I don’t think you can say who or maybe I don’t know and I don’t even want to clarify that because for me this is the real mystery the not knowing what this is all about and at the same time I try to do what I think is good for me and for the world and sometimes I discover that I didn’t do very much good to me in thepast and so I try to to make it better and to to get rid of all these conditionings which we had for so long a time you have to obey you have to do what the other people tell you to do and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah so I’m sort of a um don’t want to say silent Rebel but not uh not a loud one that’s I don’t accept everything which people are telling me especially when they are authorities then I say oh at the same time being still fearful of authority because I have learned that you have to policemenyou know so that’s what I try to reconcile to be courageous and not hide when the moment is coming and as far as prayer for me is listening to music is for me a way of prayer and feeling it in my in my body and prayer for other people yeah thinking about them wishing them well uh all the best things you know that yes but I wouldn’t say oh very rarely dear God please make that things EX why said is happening it’s feels difficult so far to my story up to you for for let’s say a final remark I I’ll do a check out um yeah II’ll be thinking about the spirituality woven into music because it it is very evocative um and connecting it’s unifying um um people may have different slightly different feelings but there’s a sense that music is very unifying and I think lifts us up to a a different realm a lot of the time so it’s amazing it’s amazing and I’m complete pass it on thank you Christine I also music dancing sound but but music brings people together it’s across everything it’s just a unifying force and sound as our eyvibration um but for me dancing also I can just being in nature um there are so many ways to experience it but yes to feel it just watching that Series this weekend about the [Music] unreal um wonders of the world is just by itself it’s all it’s absolute all and wonder of that creation so thank you I really enjoyed this as well thank you I to yeah I was just looking at one of my calendars and it has a beautiful room already so whatever there is in nature it’s just a prayer as well so watching the Magnoliasnow it’s just yeah or watching the bir Birds when I put out to feed them how they act and how they fly and how they and the squids how they jump so actually everything is a kind of prayer just by being to me that’s my checkup I pass on Victoria yeah everything that everyone said really resonates with me um and oopo of of Music uh St Augustine famously said um whoever sings prays twice so it’s very much and and that’s something that I’m very passionate about and um so it’s it’s it’s it’s amazinghow music is is really Vanishing from a lot of the institutional Church context um people can’t seem to sing anymore because they don’t they don’t they never have sung and so it’s a real epidemic and I I see it as running parallel to this kind of encroaching materialism I guess well I just finished my Kandinsky lecture Series so he’s always talking about materialism and spirituality um so I totally agree that um I’ve always felt that since I was a small child that that’s the the the true and naturenature and music are are the cathedrals or whatever the spirit spiritual Realms that we inhabit um so I totally agree about that and a propo of um elas Elijah it’s called in English of course um the local University it’s University and community choir or chorus is performing that in the spring and thank you for reminding me Heidi because I saw the conductor a few months ago to concert and I said I said oh I I really need to sing that because I’ve I’ve sung it and played it both I’ve done both ummany times and I it’s so beautiful and fabulous yeah I encourage all of you to to listen to it if you get a chance it’s it’s just it’s just fabulous um really great composing um and Mendelson interesting enough was was the the grandson of a rabbi but he was Christian so to me his his whole approach to the story of Elijah is so perfect because he has that Jewish Heritage and that Old Testament re for Elijah and at the same time this this way of like bringing it Forward into um Christianity anyway here I go lecturingagain so that’s my extended checkout but thank you everybody I I love this topic and um and all the related topics so I look forward to continuing thank you over to you Heidi over and out thank you yeah and I want to remind everybody that singing is the most natural way of I mean the most natural way of expressing an instrument is much more difficult but singing everybody can sing even if many people say they can’t but they can I know that and if they say they can’t that’s because somebody has told them they can’t can’t and then theydidn’t practice it and then when they open the mouth they certainly can’t but I I uh um really I did in my life lessons with people who who said they couldn’t sing and at the end they could sing and the spiritual quality of the voices I mean the mantras in Buddhist and wherever is is sung even African on other religions it’s all about singing and about Rhythm and um singing and Rhythm no you can clap with the hands that’s the most um most natural way of expressing oneself and also one’s Faith one one one’s innerlife and I I don’t know if you have experienced toning singing together sounds how much this brings you in a sacred real and if it was possible on on Zoom I would do it every time but unfortunately when we do it it sounds like we call in German cutson music music of heads like all distorted so I’m waiting for the for the uh video conferencing where we can sing together because that would be still that’s my desire to create spaces in which we can deep into this spiritual connect connection Yeah bysinging by voice so thank you very much and see you in two weeks bye-bye have a good time bye-bye bye bye and greetings