I found the turkey wishbone this morning.
Which immediately reminded me of that old saying, something about if wishes were fishes. So I googled it. (Don’t you just love google?). Here’s what came up: “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride" is a proverb and nursery rhyme, first recorded about 1628 in a collection of Scottish proverbs, which suggests if wishing could make things happen, then even the most destitute people would have everything they wanted.” And then this was also there: “K.C. Jones says when someone would wish for something, it used to be cute to reply: ‘And if wishes were fishes we'd have some fried; And if wishes were horses, beggars might ride.’ "
And this led me to a story I would like to share with you.
First of all, a bit of history: my mom was the one who taught me about the wishbone in the turkey. She would clean those wishbones and stash them someplace until they dried out, then proudly produce one, ask me to pull one end while she held the other end, and if it broke off in my favor, I got to make a wish. Somehow she managed to arrange it so that it always broke off in my favor. At least that’s the way I remember it.
Anyway, today is the day after thanksgiving and I am now prepping for annual round of turkey soup and turkey noodle casserole and of course, turkey sandwiches. And I found the wishbone.
I also had a question posed to me a few days ago by a wise friend, upon learning that it was my birthday. He asked, “so what are your intentions for this next trip around the sun?”
Now, my wise friend is a Science of Mind minister, like me, so I knew precisely what he was asking. Because in our world, we know that a setting of an intention is actually an affirmative prayer. And as I voiced to him my intentions, which I had previously voiced to no one else, I asked myself if I was really ready for this? Because in my world, this setting of intentions stuff is powerful. And the answer came back, yeah, I’m ready. Also in our world: our prayers tend to be of the affirmation type, not the beseeching type. In other words, we don’t ask a god or the universe or whatever outside of ourselves to please do this for us. We instead know that as we are, as Ernest Holmes put it, unique and individualized manifestations of god, we can simply speak our word and know.
We actually have a formulaic 5 step prayer for this stuff. Yep, an affirmative prayer.
Not a wish. Not a goal. Not a resolution. But an intention. There are very real differences between these things, which, by the way, is why I don’t do new year’s resolutions.
Back to the prayer:
Here’s that 5 step affirmative prayer in a nutshell: God is, I Am, It is done, Thanks, Bye!
Now, because I’ve been doing affirmative prayer since god was a child, I can do the shortened version of this thing and put feeling behind it and know.
But let me break it down a bit.
In Science of Mind classes, we are given an acronym for this formula. By the way, this is basic foundational Science of Mind stuff and it is taught in all beginning classes, because everything else basically builds upon affirmative prayer. Oh, and while I’m here, we sometimes call affirmative prayer “treatment.” So if you ever experience a Science of Mind person asking you if you have a treatment request, what they are really asking you is if you have an affirmative prayer request.
So here we go:
R U R T R?
Are You Ready to Receive?
Five steps.
The first one is Recognition. I recognize God. Now, you can flesh out this step in whatever way appeals to you. The key here is to move into a feeling space with it. This isn’t just intellectual heady stuff. Thought plus feeling equals power and when we do an affirmative prayer, we begin with this first step recognizing the existence of a god in whatever form, and we begin to feel stuff by doing that. I tend to flesh out this step with things like God is all good, all the time. I might add some qualities of spirit as we like to call them. God is love, god is power, god is peace, god is joy. And for good measure, I usually add that god is everywhere present.
Which leads me to the next step: Unification. God and I, we are one. Oneness. No separation between me and god. I usually have some fun with this step. I am a godling. A little godling running around on this earth. Notice the first person singular by the way. And if you don’t know what that is, review your grammar class but basically we do this stuff in I statements. Not you and not we. There’s reasons for this which could get me way off track so I won’t go into them now. Just speak in I statements. If you are curious and want more, take the Foundations class. Let me know. I can offer that one. Anyway, back to the unification: I am a unique and individualized manifestation of spirit. (That’s from Ernest Holmes by the way). God is living and moving and breathing as and in and through me. And one of my other favorites, I am a drop in the ocean, god is the ocean. The key is to realize here that there is no separation between us. There isn’t a god out there. Only in here.
Next step: Realization. This is a fun one. I love love love this step. Because in this step I get to affirm and know and feel as if it is already true. So we state this step in the present tense (see comment about grammar), as if it is already happening. And we get to state how we are feeling about this event. So we don’t necessarily affirm the event, we affirm the feelings we will have when the event comes true. As an example, I’m going to out myself here and give you one of the intentions I stated to my friend when he asked. You are the second to hear my intention for this next year. My intention this year is to manifest a healthy, equal, romantic relationship with a wonderful partner who is open, loving, kind and has similar beliefs to me. Now, that’s pretty specific. And no, I don’t and won’t outline that in my prayer. But I do have it mind because those things lead me to the feelings I will get when this comes true: peace, joy, a sense of companionship, intimacy. So in reality I am affirming those feelings. My prayer is for those feelings to manifest within me. The rest of it, the manifestation of the perfect guy in my life at the perfect time, well let’s just say I am now in partnership with a Law that always says yes to my word. How I get there isn’t entirely up to me, although I do have some footwork to do. Like BE the partner I wish to attract. Which means I get to also BE open, loving, kind. And I get to really know what my beliefs are. So when I BE these things, I activate the law of attraction that Ernest Holmes speaks of in an ENTIRE CHAPTER in the Science of Mind textbook. So, I affirm the feelings. I BE the qualities. Notice there is no other action that needs to be taken. Although I will freely admit that sometimes I do find it necessary to do some footwork. For example, I need to work on just how open and loving I really am. Yeah, when we affirm this stuff, the first thing that usually happens is that opportunities will arise for us to take care of our own shit. Which is why I asked myself if I was truly ready to affirm this intention. I knew what I was setting myself up for. It’s good. It’s ok. I’m ready.
Then I give thanks. Express my gratitude. Because it is already done in the Law, that delights in doing precisely what I affirm, every single time.
Then I release into that Law, which basically means I let it go. It is done. I need do nothing more with it. As Eddie Watkins Jr. sings in one of his songs, you don’t bury a seed then dig it up again to see if it is sprouting. I leave it be.
And anchor: and so it is!
That’s it!
That’s the story of how I got from a wishbone to an affirmative prayer.