pray much.

I was looking at some quotes on prayer and thought about how my approach to prayer has changed. I have ceased to feel guilty about not praying regularly. Guilt is not the proper response in that case, it only gets in the way of approaching Him again when I finally do feel the urge again to reconnect. I enjoy it now so much more as a result, and probably talk to God more often as well.
It's funny (or sad or interesting...or well, not funny) how several quotes in the trend of "God helps those who help themselves" were in the list. "Pray to Allah, but tie your camel too", or "Pray to God, but stear away from the rocks", etc., though the intention is clear, pray but don't sit on your ass and expect things to come to you, can go a bit further to the "Try it yourself and if that fails, then pray" kind of approach, which inevitably leads to "If you prayed and it didn't work out, it means you didn't do enough work for it yourself".... I've been a bit more confronted with this attitude lately, as my parents, just like they have for the past 27+ years have been doing, pray for guidance in the big moves and changes in their lives and sometimes the decisions they make don't make alot of sense from a rational/normal kind of perspective, which is met with some scepticism or even criticism by some people around me. I haven't quite reached the same level of trust that they seem to have, but I'm slowly working in that direction, I think.
And I came across a quote (can't find it now, it's somewhere in the list, and the list is impressively long), not sure by who, about how even Jesus got "no" as an answer, when he prayed that the cup would pass from him. For some reason I had never really looked at that bit of the story in this light before. I just assumed that, of course he died anyway cause that was the plan from the start and Jesus' prayer was just an expression of how difficult it all was for him. But he really was praying that he wouldn't have to do it, and he really did get a "no". And he is the son of God. My "no's" couldn't possibly compare. A bit of a humbling thought. So my prayers will probably look a bit more like "your will be done" than before.
In the meantime, I am gonna agree with Kierkegaard that "prayer does not change God but changes him who prays...".

this sort of stuff is why i like psychology.

we all know that time flies when having fun and slows down when you least wish it to. and we all wonder (or maybe it's just me) how that really works. obviously, the clock only ticks at one notch per second, 60 seconds per minute, 60 minutes per hour, 2 times around 12.... so obviously our perception of time is subjective. and some brilliant scientists are testing how and why that works as it does.
turns out that when doing an activity that is not particularly fun and not particularly un-fun, one's perception of how fun or un-fun it was is influenced by how much time you think it took. so if you are told it took 5 min (when in reality it took 10), you'll think it more fun than if you were told it took 20 min (when again, it only took 10). in fact, you'll think that the "20min" activity was slow and boring and you disliked it very much. funny.
it could be that different parts of your brain are activated for different activities. when the parts that focus on your body and physical experience are activated, you'll experience time as slower than if these parts are not activated. makes sense, if you think about it. when doing activities that take the focus off yourself/your body, and are more focused on whats going on around and outside of yourself, distracted and absorbed by something other than yourself, you forget your position in the time/space continuum....
hmm. explains certain elements of the experience of certain activities...

Curious what y'all think of this?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8500285.stm