I was born and raised as a plain old everyday protestant...which in my family meant we could get up and go to any church we wanted, take a dime forthe collection plate and BE QUIET about it, don't wake anyone up! :)
My closest brother(Irish Twins we are!) and I would jump up, dress, grab our dimes and haul ass. One Sunday a Mennonite church, one at a Nazarene, one at a Landmark Missionary Baptist, sometimes we would walk all the way downtown (Kokomo, Indiana) to sit beneath the open windows of a Black church just so we could hear the SING Honey!!! We were always mezmerized by that full gospel choir stuff, but we'd never have gone inside uninvited.
I guess the point to all this is this; we were taught A Prayer; "Now I lay me down to sleep!" I hate that prayer's guts, I didn't WANT to die before I woke! Arggggg. Anyhow. Praying most of my life meant "God if you'll do this for me, I promise never to (fill in the blanks) When I got grown, I no longer believed anything in the bible other than that it was a ferocious accounting to a mean and selfish old man. But I did learn to love the Jesus that I understand from it all.The Man, The Healer, the Carer, the Rabble Rouser, the gentle, just and joyous man who loved children, animals and WOMEN! Woo hoo! I learned there are other gods and goddesses.
Masculine + Feminine = Balance...Yin and Yang. I pray to different ones for different things, though, I must say the Christian/Jewish/Islamic god gets short shrift with me. I just can't go there. I perform spells and rituals sometimes and they have the same intents and outcomes as my prayers, it seems to me. And you? How do you interpret Prayer/Spells? Discussion? :)
