On Apr 18, 2005, at 2:27 PM, Warren Ockrassa wrote:
Here's something else, then. What if there were Iraqis praying for
an outcome that could only have been possible if Wes didn't survive?
Or anybody! I suspect there were prayers for various people to be
elected POTUS last fall. I stopped myself from doing that and decided
to pray to accept whatever outcome happened.
That's it. That's it right there, I think. That's probably the key.
Rather than petitioning a deity for an *outcome*, it might be much more
sensible to petition that deity for acceptance of circumstances.
When praying like that, it doesn't even matter if there's anyone on the
other end of the line. The practice of seeking to accept reality, rather
than dropping prayer coins into some cosmic vending machine, will help.
That said, one prayer that the Judeo-Christian scripture highly honors
is the prayer for wisdom, and seeking acceptance of circumstances seems
to me a most wise prayer.
Solomon is highly praised by God when he prays for wisdom and knowledge,
as told in 2 Chronicles 1 ("[10] Give me now wisdom and knowledge, so
that I may go out and come in before this people: for who is able to be
the judge of this great people of yours? [11] And God said to Solomon,
Because this was in your heart, and you did not make request for money,
property, or honour, or for the destruction of your haters, or for long
life; but you have made request for wisdom and knowledge for yourself,
so that you may be the judge of my people over whom I have made you
king: Wisdom and knowledge are given to you; and I will give you wealth
and honour, such as no king has had before you or ever will have after
you.").]
Similarly, James 1:5 reads "But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask
of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach; and it will be
given to him."
On the other hand, I certainly find compassion for those who lose
faith
after a terrible thing that God seems to have been able to prevent. I
know a mother whose son was killed on very his first mission in Iraq,
in
one of those against-all-odds accident. She says she can't get over
the
fact that it was such an unlikely event (the accident) and lost faith
in
God.
Depends on what/why, etc., I think -- I mean, if one is simply angry at
one's god and saying "Stuff it" because of that, it seems a little like
a small child pouting and saying "I hate you" because Mommy won't let
him have a candy bar.
Rather than turn from a faith it seems to me that a more sensible
approach would be to interrogate the faith and especially what one's
expectations are of that faith.
When Nick first told me the story of the mother who lost her son in that
against-all-odds accident, I have to admit that my first instinct was to
wonder whether the faith she lost was such a loss, or whether she was
better off no longer insisting that God spare her son.
I feel as though I have some standing in making such a statement, having
lost my own son ten years ago to a rare brain cancer. We got lots and
lots of advice on how to pray for Kevin, a lot of it of the "vending
machine" variety ("Just ask God and you'll get what you want!"). Some of
it was of that troublesome sort that suggests that if Kevin died, it
would be in part because we failed to pray in the spirit that some find
behind the words of James 1:6 ("But let him ask in faith, without any
doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven by the
wind and tossed.").
When we were sane (which was *not* the whole time Kevin was ill by any
stretch of the imagination) we prayed for strength to weather whatever
would befall us and our son.
*That* prayer was answered in spades.
"Why did this or that god let this or that thing happen" suddenly
becomes a question that doesn't need to exist any longer...
For some Christians, that question doesn't mean much, either. A God we
can predict reliably is too small a God.
Dave
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