Hey God, it’s me.

I another life time, world, in a body I do not recall at all, I was privileged enough to attend a parochial school. Christian of the Lutheran flavor.  At the time I  was a pretty solid believer and had eyes on the big prize of pastoring. That, like so many other good ideas, went away, leaving no trace of when or to where.

In this school was a kid with the last name Newgreen. We all called him that too. Newgreen. Some staff and even his parents called him that.

Now, this school sent us up to camp in the winter!  Middle of the school year and off we go, up a mountain, big rocks, cliffs, trees and snow. Days of projects and outdoor adventures, all with God and Jesus tossed in. Evenings of all God and Jesus lessons. Very cool. I think the lack of oxygen was to keep us under control and weaken our mental resistance to what we were being taught.

One evening the topic was praying and how to do it.  Now, I knew the Lord’s prayer or as we kids called it, the Our Father. This, as I understood it at the time, was a prayer recipe. Start like this, hit all the points, wrap it up big and tight. Viola! I even knew it from my Catholic days. What I didn’t get was why we repeated it when it was (is?) a recipe and not an actual prayer? At least, that’s what I thought then and now, thinking again.

Another part of how to prayer was how to get the conversation started. The God I knew from the Catholics was not a friendly or accessible God. He was mean, would do bad things to me if I did bad things. He had a son that was perfect and I was told how much I could never be like him. The Lutherans were a bit more forgiving in their description. “When you start your prayer, just talk to God like a friend.” Hmm. OK.

Anyway – later that night, just after lights out,  my cabin hears, “Hey God, it’s me, Newgreen.”

Now, this led to a lot and long round of laughter throughout the cabin. Now, 35 +/- years later I keep hearing him and wondering. Why tell God who you are when praying? He knows I’m guessing. Why repeat the Lord’s Prayer when it is just an outline? It seem to me like reading a self help book to know what’s in it without trying any of it.

I am not sure what I am doing when I pray. If or what I can ask for or about. For who? How long do I pray? I usually do it in bed so, not long is the true answer at this time. Sleepy man of late.

I also wonder why I pray out loud but only after I say, “Hey God, it’s me, Ant-Knee” – I want to be sure he knows and can hear me too.

Tired, very tired and lost about this. I had something great to say too. Dang it.

peace –