Prayer as Meditation

I attended an adult religious education workshop at my new UU church that is designed to help participants recognize their own spiritual path.  The first session was about being open to different religions, religious practices, and religious ideas since they might actually have components that fit you well.  Basically, it was about leaving your religious baggage at the door.

As the the workshop was made up of UU's, we targeted prayer as a practice that we might have baggage around.  We compared prayer to our ideas of meditation, then practiced a prayer/meditation.  Our activity was to imagine three different people, wish something positive for them, to hope that something positive and somewhat specific happens for them.
The first person that we were to choose someone was someone that we're close to and love.  I chose Gram.  She's gone, so I wasn't sure what she might need.  I chose to wish that she knew how much I loved her and how much I admired her, how much we all loved and were inspired by her, before she left us.  And even though I don't believe in heaven, I hoped that she could look down and see us happy.  I believe that people's energy returns to the cosmos, usually dissipating itself.  But Gram was so stubborn that I can imagine her holding her energy together for awhile. ;)  Anyway, this part of the exercise had my crying.
The second part of the activity was to wish/hope for positive things for someone that you don't know.  I chose someone at work who is a single parent to her own kids as well as other family members' kids.  I wished peace, rest, and happiness for her.  For me, this was the easiest one of the three people.
The third person was someone that you are in conflict with.  I chose my ex.  I was definitely in conflict with him that week!  It was really hard to think of something positive that I wanted to send him.  Well, something positive for him, rather than positive for me.  ;)  I think that I ended up wishing that he really does find someone who fits him, who loves all of the parts that I loved as well as someone who can love and appreciate all of the parts that drove me crazy.  I teared up a bit on this one, too.

This was an emotional activity for me.  In our discussion after the prayer/meditation, most of the other participants mentioned how it was difficult to find someone that they didn't know well but still wanted to wish good things for.  Two of the 11 participants wished positive things for me as the person that they don't know well.  That makes me feel pretty special; they could've chosen any of the hundreds of people that they run into regularly and they chose me!

I have to miss the next two classes, and may change congregations, but this workshop made me feel even more connected to the congregation.  It also supported me after a very tough week.  Thank you, UU prayer!