What I learned today 


God and mines 

CNN reports on the scene at the local church where the families of the miners waited for news. When they heard the miners were alive, they attributed it to their prayers. But then they found out that, as predicted and as logic would warrant, all the miners were dead.
I recalled when I read this of when I discussed my brother's fungal infection with a friend of mine who had attended medical school. My friend told me that a fungal infection in the lungs is not treatable, and usually results in death. I was glad he told me, but terribly frightened. I watched my brother die at Sloan Kettering about a week later.
My brother was a leader in his church, and had a wide diverse group of friends. He had Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, New Church, Buddhist, and Moslem prayers and meditations directed to him. He had an incurable fungal infection that occurred as a result of his bone marrow transplant. I prayed for him, knowing that God could cure him instantly, and Bill would be back to his goofy self. But I saw the nurse increase the morphine, and heard him stop breathing and saw him die.
Years earlier, my brother and I had a disagreement over the nature of prayer. He said he was praying for an affordable one bedroom apartment with lots of light in Manhattan. I told him that I didn't think that would work. And since his death, I still don't. You have to do it yourself.
After Bill died, I assumed that God did whatever the fuck he wanted to do, so what's the point in prayer?
I eventually came to this conclusion. To pray for things outside your control doesn't make much sense. What does make sense is to pray for guidance in what you can do. Maybe I'm not a good Lutheran, or even a good Christian, but what I remember most from Sunday school was "faith without works is dead." So don't pray for the world to get better. Pray that you can figure out what you can do to make it better. Why bother with the ethereal, when the meat and dirt is right in your face.  

Posted: Wed - January 4, 2006 at 07:12 PM           |

©