Prayer is a cop-out

 

Allow me to lay before you a scenario (that you’ve probably experienced if you’ve been on social media for any amount of time, especially during the last several months).

Something horrible happens in the news. People post varying responses to it. Some people are angry, some sad, some are really bad at empathizing, some don’t get why it’s a big deal.

Someone shares their thoughts about the event with an admonition to pray for healing or peace, or whatever they think the situation needs.

Someone else comments that saying you’ll pray for something is the exact opposite of action, and probably is actually more harmful than just saying nothing, because all it does is admit to your inaction and indifference.

I’ve seen this scenario play out more times than I can count, and I used to get a little worked up by that last comment, a little indignant at the ignorance. How can they think prayer amounts to inaction? Praying people know the impact prayer can have, and they’re not trying to be insensitive. They’re doing their best to DO something.

But you know, my thinking around this has shifted somewhat recently. We all know, to some extent, the paralyzation of this pandemic and all the other shocking things on our news feeds. It’s all coming out, we think, because this is a pivotal moment in history and people are fighting for things. Everyone has something to say. Everyone has a cause they’re fighting for. And if you don’t–how can you be sitting still? Your silence is violence.

The echo chamber of social media turns every issue into a personal one. Every status is a rallying cry, every tweet or innocent photo is viewed in the context of the turmoil the world is facing, and we put ourselves on trial for not doing enough, not caring enough. Not reading enough, not listening enough. Not weeping enough. A good day becomes a source of guilt when we are responsible for every piece of information that passes in front of our eyes.

What are YOU doing? The world is demanding to know. Don’t you think you should be DOING something?

And all this makes me think, is prayer action? Or is it inaction? Is it leading the charge for what’s clearly the right answer, or is it demonstrating uncertainty and hesitancy? Is the praying person taking a back seat, accepting defeat? In this world of privilege and oppression, of power and politics, of injustice and inhumanity, is the praying person really DOING anything?

And I have to say, in the midst of all this noise, that I think the answer is no.

No. When you pray, you aren’t DOING anything. Doing something implies a confidence in purpose, a notion that there is something in a situation that you have the power to control or fix.

Prayer is the opposite of that.

In prayer, you ARE acknowledging your own uncertainty. You are recognizing your own powerlessness. You are choosing to be silent, to be humble, to admit that you don’t have all the answers. You are letting go of the need to strive. You are relinquishing control of the things that overwhelm you. Prayer IS a cop out–but it’s a necessary one.

There are things in our lives that we can control. But so much of our lives–so much in the world–has gotten so completely out of control lately that we’re drowning.

And can we even recognize that? Can we even see how obtuse it is to think that we, as humans, who can barely maintain a grip on our sleep schedules or diets or finances, could somehow be qualified to take on all the world’s problems simply because we are AWARE of them? Suffocated by the weight of our own lives, we just keep reaching for extra pillows, thinking that somehow if we pull them all in close enough we’ll be able to learn how to breathe through them.

We aren’t equipped for this. We never were. Which is why prayer exists in the first place–it removes the responsibility from our shoulders, where we’ve placed it, and gives it up to God, whose hands can contain all the burdens of this world and then some. Prayer is an opportunity to say “I have no idea what I’m doing,” and to not be ashamed of that.

To say, someone help me! I’m tired of doing this by myself. I CAN’T do this by myself.

To say you give up, and hear God’s mighty voice answer: “now you will see what I can do.”

A beautiful and terrible thing

 

Dumbledore once said that the truth is a beautiful and terrible thing, and as such it should be treated with caution.

If you know Harry Potter, you know that in this moment he’s talking about a particularly painful truth, and how to judge whether Harry, still a child, is ready to hear it. But you also know that as time goes by, the understandable, well-intentioned reluctance of Dumbledore to reveal the truth to Harry actually becomes a source of pain, loss, and suffering for both of them, and eventually Dumbledore begins to regret his caution.

Had he been more open from that first moment–had he trusted more, had he feared less–some great evils may have been prevented, and some immense good could have come from it.

How often we do the same thing in our own lives. The truth we know is a source of power–power to change everything–and in our core, we sense this. But the potency of the truth certainly is a terrifying thing; once unleashed, how to control it? Once made known, once opened up and vulnerable, how to protect ourselves? It often seems better to conceal truth, especially painful truth, in order to preserve our sense of autonomy, certainty, even our identity.

The truth really is a beautiful and terrible thing. But what I’ve had the opportunity to learn recently, and what I want my son to know as he navigates the murky waters of this human life, is that the truth’s ultimate power is healing. And that healing can only come about when the truth is revealed.

Telling the truth is not always easy. Sometimes it feels like the least easy thing to do–especially when it means telling someone you’ve hurt them, or revealing your own hidden shame. But here is the truth about secrets: you have to hold tightly to them lest they leak out. You think, by so doing, that you are controlling them, but what you come to realize is that your secrets are actually controlling you. And secrets are cruel masters.

The truth, on the other hand, is a secret set free–and in turn, a you set free from its burden. Jesus said it: “the truth will set you free.” And he meant the truth, the whole truth, the unashamed truth that begs for forgiveness and mercy rather than covering itself in a shield of darkness. The truth that may not be easy to say, but that eases your conscience in the telling.

Psalm 34:4 says “I sought the LORD, and He answered me, and delivered me from all my fears.”

What is the truth you are afraid to tell? Set it free. God’s way is truth, and if you seek it, your fears will shrink to nothing in the presence of the One who saves. Secrets and lies can hold no power over you when you trust Him to deliver you. GOD is truth, and the truth will set you free.

Something about writing

 

Sometimes I write in a journal. Other times I feel more urgency, so I go for my laptop. I want to feel the words pouring out of me and not worry about how they look or how i’m holding my pen or anything else. Words on a screen, and just words. 

Now that I think about it, it’s kind of funny how much I hate e-readers, considering the way I often neglect my collection of coptic-bound notebooks. Am I a hypocrite, willing to type my words into a digital matrix and send them out to further pollute cyberspace while adamantly denying the book-ness of digitized books?

In my defense, I tend to write—here anyway—for a different medium. This kind of thing, for instance, reads like it should go on the internet. And if I want these words to mean anything to anyone other than myself, it makes sense to put them here. Maybe these words aren’t meant to be bound, and that’s where their power lies.

Poetry, on the other hand, is a different monster. Those are the words you want to feel through your hands, like the ink is your own blood, every letter a sacrificial offering, because damn it if poetry doesn’t require that kind of weight.

These are the things I think about when my mind just wanders. It always, somehow, comes back to words and what to do with them. I crave words at the same time I am filled with them—which can be truly inconvenient, as I don’t always have the means to harness them, and I don’t even always know exactly which ones they are. So here are some now, and I’m not sure where they’ll stop, because it always seems that when I start I could keep going forever.

Good news

 

My husband and I got some exciting news last week: we’re having a boy!

Boy
To know you are a boy
makes no difference to the cosmos
which, of course,
didn’t need to be told.
It’s just that I can see you now,
your chubby knees trembling
under the weight of all that energy,
your cheeky smile
and the scowl that moves like a cloud
starting at the chin
and suddenly creasing your whole face
like it’s always been there,
carved into stone.
You will try to get away with it,
with the keratin shell
that hides your insecurities–
and occasionally the truth–
from a mother’s questioning gaze.
I will still see you then,
like I saw you in sound waves and pixels
despite what must be
the most impermeable hiding place ever.