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the power of prayer--to whoever
by jonathan schildbach
"I was an oak/ Now I'm a willow/ Now I can bend."
--Buffy Sainte-Marie/ELVIS
2000 didn't exactly start off in a brilliant, upbeat, new-bright-day kind of way in my little world. One of my closest friends was in a motorcycle accident before the first week was out. He ended up in the intensive care unit, and is now faced with putting his brain back together. Some parts are still there--other parts are questionable. As I write this, he still isn't considered fully conscious. Until he is, it's impossible to know how bad off, or perhaps, how lucky he is.
The first time I saw my friend in the ICU (I'll call him Paul) was the day after the accident, and the day before my big Elvis birthday party--or Elvismas as it has come to be known. I got to see Paul in the dark and quiet, hooked up to a bevy of machines, then go home and prepare food for the party.
As I was working on the food, and drinking heavily, I was playing mix tapes. Hot Chocolate's "Emma" came up on one of the tapes. Just days before, on New Year's Eve, Paul and I had gotten into an insult-match (a frequent, but good-natured occurrence) because he was not familiar with the original version of the song, but some remake.
I started to relay this bit of information to my wife when I totally lost it. My normally jaded-but-nervous veneer fell away and I blubbered like I hadn't done in about 20 years--since my younger brother demolished a rather complicated puzzle I'd been working on for days.
As with then, the problem was that I had no control over what had happened. There was a building up process that was suddenly knocked backwards. I was filled with frustration and anger, and couldn't vent in any productive way. I could work hard all over again to get things back together, or just give up.
Basically there was nowhere for me to go with all of the emotion and confusion I was feeling--or at least nowhere beyond myself and those people close to me--none of whom could do anything to rescue Paul. As I said to my wife, somewhere in my mind I had this idea that my friendship was supposed to keep people safe. My liking certain people and treating them well (or at least trying to) was supposed to serve as some shield against negative things happening to them. Much in the same way I hoped my negative feelings toward people who had wronged me would bring evil upon them.
At any rate, for months I'd been caught up on the idea that prayer is as primitive and as pointless as a rain dance. But at least with a rain dance, maybe you can have back-up practices--a sacrifice or two to appease the gods before you try the dance again. You keep doing this, and eventually you will, without a doubt, get rain.
Prayer, on the other hand, does not have to be answered--ever. People have tried to overcome the feeling that god is ignoring them by suggesting that perhaps their prayers aren't being answered in the way that they want them to be, but in the way god wants. Another possibility is that maybe one is praying for the wrong things. Okay, fair enough. I can accept that god doesn't have to answer to me, or anybody, and that the world is an imperfect place. But god's still got one hell of a cop-out-- 'Don't question me. You can't understand.'
For years, though, I had been praying or talking to a personal god--Elvis. Shortly before Paul's accident, I shut off this behavior, forcing myself to avoid indulging in false comforts. Years before, my younger brother pointed out the pathology of my prayer behavior. I had been raised to believe in a caring god. When I lost belief, I wasn't fully prepared to deal with the idea that nobody was out there for me. I called up a substitute. Even better, since I had an idea of what my substitute might say, and how he might say it, I could hear the answers to my prayers. As long as the prayers weren't too demanding, and the responses weren't too specific, everything would work out just fine.
Ultimately, I landed on the idea that prayer is about comforting the person praying, not about getting god to do what one wants. Surely this is not an original idea. When I was turning it over in my mind, out of some bizarre synchronicity I saw Kid of Kid'n'Play, on "Politically Incorrect" paraphrasing a C.S. Lewis statement that prayer is not for god, but for the person doing the praying. At first, this idea pumped me up with anger. Why pray if god's not going to do anything about it? But I started to mellow. If prayer is going to let one calm down--allow one to gain strength for life's challenges--then more power to it. I know that's why I was talking to Elvis in the first place. The deal was finally clinched when one of my friends said 'If prayer is going to help somebody be a better friend to Paul, to get through all of this, then it can't be all bad.'
Okay, I thought, 'Are you there, Elvis? It's me, Jonathan.'
Copyright © 2000 Jonathan Schildbach All Rights Reserved
Jonathan Schildbach is a graduate of the University of Oregon who makes his living as a writer. He lives in Seattle with his wife, Mayumi, and daughter, Jesse Garon. Jonathan is seeking an agent for his writing.