(Im)possible Prayers

I got an email from my little sister a while back, who has gone through her own version of hell in the last several years - I'll spare her a description here, but she is so often coming up with stuff I blog about there has to be some deeper connection.

The email is one of those "chain letter" emails that you feel like you have to respond or forward so as not to break the chain and put some bad mojo on everyone else's wishes and prayers.  (You should be thankful I didn't forward it here).  So, I read through it, thought about my wish (prayer, wish, whatever, I think it was a prayer because there were various references to saints and God in the poem that you read after you make your "wish" - but the email called it a 'wish').

Well, what d'ya know that when I thought about my wish, I started to pray.

So then I thought, 'hey, instead of praying for my next million [actually is was a billion], why don't I pray for something I REALLY CARE ABOUT?'  Now that would be a change.  Because the reality, or the epiphany, maybe, is that money is not the kind of motivator in my life that it used to be, and frankly, I could get by fine with less.  (Not that I'm volunteering to give it away to you all or anything.)  Do not forward this blog to the San Francisco Probate Examiners! 

But I reckoned back to Reading, Massachusetts and the sanctuary at the First Congregational Church, where our Youth Group met and pieced together a version of a hippie-type prayer service, with acoustic guitars, real wine (which was really cool when you're 16), and genuine prayers of a bunch of idealistic, hippie-like teenagers thinking they were going to change the world.  Ah, the 60's and 70's. . . . . (nostalgic sigh).

During our "prayer circle," we're all praying for A's on tests, healing for broken friendships, snow for Christmas, wellness for someone's Dad, etc., and some guy, who was actually on his way to join the Marines (and we all remember how popular the Marines were in 1974!), can't remember his name, prays "Bring us peace in the Middle East."

I burst out laughing.

Yes, it was inappropriate, I know.  But the laugh was part discomfort over the whole prayer thing with a bunch of teenagers (fathom my daughter doing this today), part surprise that one of us cared about someone outside the small circle of people that was our group, and part laughter at the sheer impossibility of the prayer ever coming true.  But, you know, I finally got it in the last few years.

If we do not believe it can happen, it will not happen. 

We have to pray for peace in the Middle East. 

So, in reading this dumb-asped wish-chain-letter thing from my "little" (42 year-old) sister, I thought, 'huh, I should pray for peace in the Middle East.'  So I prayed for peace in the Middle East.  Even if it happens on George's watch (we cannot elect him again, right?  You only get two elections. . . . .  unless you don't count the 2000 election as an election, because you know, he didn't really win it, but I'm not going to re-hash that again). 

In any event, my Sage Nugget Of Wisdom (SNOW) of contribution for this blog is that I need to continue to pray for peace in the Middle East.  If you can do that and not laugh hysterically like I did when I was 16, then there's really hope.

Now forward this blog to 16 people, and close your eyes, count to thirty-one by two's, backwards, spin around twice with your finger on your nose, and in four days (that's what the chain letter said) there will be peace in the Middle East.

Actually, if, instead of believing in chain letters, we all just pray -- really pray, hard, visualizing the peace in whatever format (other than total annihilation) you can muster -- it is quite probable that this prayer will be realized.

That's today’s blog.  I believe in the possible.

-Peter