Posted by giveawayboy on February 06, 2003 at 19:41:53:
In Reply to: Sure posted by Marcos on February 06, 2003 at 14:05:20:
: ~Yea, sure. If you look at Bill's response to J, he refers to the "fishbowl." The fishbowl consisted
: of people's names in a little piece of paper or of people's (or animals) pictures. Nothing specific or private was contained in the fishbowl. We knew an individual's (human or animal) intentions, but it was
: also meant to go beyond some laundry list of intentions, but to encompass the whole being, lifting that
: being up to God, since of course He knows His creation better than we did. The placing of the name or picture of an individual in the bowl symbolized that the individual was now placed in God's care, or that we've put him/her in God's hands.
Yeah Marcos, I like how you explained that. The fishbowl (which wasn't a real fishbowl) is still very much in use. I often put new requests orpeoples' names in there. The neat thing about a place to leave your prayers is that it gives you a psychological locus for your faith; a place where you can tangibly leave your prayers. And using incense also is a way to give your prayers to God. I think alot of people might confuse physical actions w a lack of spiritual awareness. For instance, they might think doing physical actions negates the true spirit of prayer by dipping into superstition or something. Well, this is not what the 'fishbowl' was about. It was great to be able to write a name or just take a photo or something and 'leave it in the fishbowl'. For me it was just like dropping everything in God's lap and leaving it there. And it wasn't always prayer requests, but sometimes just names written down without us even knowing the needs of a person. All prauer is not requests. Sometimes prayer is just acknowledgement. Sometimes it is just quietness and stillness. Sometimes it is constructive. The fishbowl was not limited to requests, but just to the ongoing spirit of prayer. It was a place where we met to commune w God. Like PS says, these kinds of helpful tools are like points of faith. It's not that we thought we HAD TO HAVE a fishbowl for God to hear us. It was more for us than him. It was a way for us to concretize our prayers and also to realize that we were doing something as a community. This communal sharing has continued. The 'altar' and 'fishbowl' now reside at my new home, per my promise to Marc that they should stay w me. It's nothing but a table with an icon of Christ and his mother, some candles, incense and a glass bowl, but teken up into Christ all these common things become vehicles for prayer. That is all. Nothing flashy, nothing magic, just alot of praying.
Later, Bill