
A few years back, I was working as a massage therapist at an upscale retreat center in the Catskills. One summer day, I was driving to work, off to give a “couple’s massage” …a type of massage done with another therapist and two clients, side-by-side. With my sunroof open and my windows completely down, the 30-minute drive was a pleasure, as I let that mountain air flow through my car, and through my hair, under perfectly blue skies.
When I arrived, I was told that the couple’s massage was for “VIP’s” — celebrity friends of the owners — and we were expected to give the highest level of service and courtesy. This was fine for me, because I always gave my absolute best to everyone, for I love what I do. So I felt no pressure at all.
After the massage started, I felt great, and seemed to find my flow instantly. Plus, I really enjoyed giving this particular treatment. It involved working with warm sesame oil, infused with Tibetan herbs, and hot basalt stones… total luxury!
But then I heard something that I was not expecting… Thunder!
Wait, what? There wasn’t a cloud in the sky on my drive!
But that did not upset me perse. What upset me, was that I left my way-too-expensive iPhone in my console, directly underneath the open sunroof! And all my windows were open, too!
As I continued to work on my VIP client, the blue skies around the center started to become darker and darker. I found myself in an intense quagmire of inner conflict. I didn’t want to stop the flow of the massage session and possibly upset my VIP client. But I also didn’t want to have to spend another $600 for a cell phone, and have the interior of my car soaking wet.
As more storm clouds rolled in, so did feelings of anxiety. And as I observed myself getting anxious within this terrific conundrum, I asked God for help, and I began to pray. And while I continued to give my treatment to my client, I prayed earnestly to the angels, to protect my phone and car, and keep it dry.
And the cool thing is that, when I did, I really felt this prayer go out. So I trusted that everything was going to be okay.
And it seemed that right after my prayer, the sky got very dark, and it started to pour down buckets. And then came some fierce lightning. As I observed the spectacular scene unfolding outside the windows of the massage room, I somehow felt okay with it all. For it felt like the prayer that I sent out resonated within me, so I just stayed with the feeling of that grace, knowing that everything was going to be fine.
To be fully honest, I admit there were a few times when I heard the thunder, and saw the lightning, that I was tempted to stray into doubt. But the feeling of my prayer held my sh*t together!
As I stayed connected to my massage, I observed that the storm outside was starting to pass. And by the time the treatment was close to ending, the skies outside were clear again.
So after the therapist and I gave water to our clients, and walked them to their locker rooms, I quickly ran outside to the parking lot to check on my car. …And I was dumbfounded. For there was a perfectly dry circle around my car. Now mind you, I wasn’t parked underneath any trees or anything, and EVERYTHING around my car was soaked. Yet there was this perfectly dry circle in which my car was parked.
Immediately, my heart filled with gratitude, and I gave thanks for God answering my prayer, and for the crazy miraculous divine ability to co-create what I want on this earthly plane.
When is prayer some hokey, superstitious activity, and when is it truly effective and powerful? Well, it pretty depends on who we think we are, and in relationship to what, and what components of the mind we activate for our prayerful focus. When our scope of experience and sense of context places God as merely a concept within our minds, and our prayers are no more substantial than wishes that we ask to be granted by this God we imagine, then we are lost in the land of make-believe. The single most significant aspect of mindal experience as concerns prayer, is how we feel. If we are seeing ourselves in relationship to an imaginary concept of God, deep within our subconscious, we are most likely feeling needy, weak, and small, as like the ability of self to... Login as member to read the whole explication