My open letter to the Moderator of The United Church of Canada in January of 2015 which I wrote in response to the brutal attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo by Muslim extremists expressed my frustration with the language of prayer which intimates our every act, our every strength comes from a supernatural being.
That wasn’t good enough. We need to do better than turn toward the palliative that prayer is at times like these. We need to address the issues that keep fear between us. We need to weep together, holding hands instead of merely folding them to our god while hatred continues to stalk our world. In my weeping, words, too, are close to useless. Perhaps sharing them here, however, will help heal not only my own heart but other’s as well.
Are we safe here?
Behind the language we use
to describe the god of our fathers –
though most of our fathers never prayed –
so, yes, the god of our mothers, too?
Are we safe here?
Wrapped in the colours of our nation,
draped in its history –
not all of it actually
glorious and free?
Are we safe here?
Sheltered in the truths and untruths
that get us through our days,
tuck us in at night,
invite untroubled dreams?
Or is our safety housed in brittle prejudices,
secured behind beliefs
so fragile we fear they will seep away
should we leave behind
the idols we use to describe them,
the language we use to stave up useless gods?
Can prayer do anything at times like these
when hatred, locked and loaded,
bears down hard upon the fragility of life,
strewing lush carpets with bodies and blood,
lives torn from the perfections of their own beliefs
and disappearing in a heartbeat?
Is there nothing more that we can do
but reinforce the ancient stories
that only ever tell us
we are not one
when, in truth,
we only ever were?
Let me weep for you, my brother.
Let me hold you, my sister,
your aching heart beating against the rhythm of my own,
our tears mingling,
our ancient angers pooled red around our feet.
And when our hearts dry and our tears slow,
may we see in one another’s eyes
all the truths of love and sorrow
etched upon our broken hearts
and written in a common language
not of gods, but of our love.
15 Responses
Gretta,
You bring up the subject of prayer- if you are the Atheist that you claim to be – do you pray? If you do I am wondering who you direct your prayers to?
Bruce
“‘if’ you are the atheist you claim to be.”
Strikes me, Bruce, your so-called question is asked and answered.
When Love becomes more important than god, then there will be no further need for religion. If you answer – Love is God, then let’s call the idea of God – Love.
Let us undo the hierarchy of men, who claim to be closer to the heart of god, and therefore should be followed as the true prophets of the ancient words. In a religious construct, this will never happen. Every tribe has a different god, and a different hierarchy of traditions and mancipations (an ancient word, but we are talking ancient words here) ceded by the hierarchy and man-made laws of the particular tribal church.
If prayer is important to your God, as you say, and your God loves prayers and worshipping adulations – let the congregations put heartfelt prayers into the offering envelopes, instead of money – prayers for the growth of the church and the ministers within. Surely God would be happier with the prayers than with the money, since money is really in Caesar’s domain, and prayers are in the domain of God.
If the church failed, due to lack of finances, surely this would be the judgment of God, since the congregation prayed for the health of the church? Perhaps God is unhappy with the ministers, of the message of the church itself. God did not answer the prayers and the church roof started leaking.
If you have the belief, prayers are important and answerable by God, pray for the church and keep your money in your pocket. God works in mysterious ways, and if God is happy with your church, He will provide the money necessary to keep the structures maintained, the heat on, and the families of the good ministers taken care of too.
Tell the congregation tomorrow – please put only your prayers into the offering box, since the leaders of the church have faith in your church, and faith God will provide everything required for your church to continue. If your church fails – surely it is God’s judgment since the prayers were not answered.
One thing I have never heard Gretta say is, she does not believe in Love – in fact, she only promotes Love, through benevolent and kind actions given freely. We can all learn from such a compassionate, empathic approach to life, and I “pray,” you will also have as much faith in your God and church. Ask your congregations only for their prayers – have faith in your faith.
“the language of prayer which intimates our every act, our every strength comes from a supernatural being.”
Well said, Gretta!
Indeed, the language of christian prayer intimates their every, everything, comes from their predefined supernatural being. I am an advocate of reconciliation. The apologies fall short, all of them fall short to exactly that extent. Until the apologies apologize for purporting to be super natural, when they are not, or at least cannot be known to be so, they persist in insisting they are superior to aboriginal spirituality. And reconciliation cannot proceed.
A timely reminder that our actions are more important than trying to cajole a deity to grant our wishes. Particularly in light of the mass shootings at two mosques in New Zealand your words resonate with me and many many others.
This is worth sharing. May we walk in this light!
Thank you, John!
David,
My question is simple; if there is no God, who does one direct one’s worship and petitions to? Ian says that love is more important than God. Well then, who is the source of love? The Bible says, ‘God is love.” Numerous references to God’s love are found in the Word of God. But if a person does not believe in God, I guess they don’t believe the Bible either. What then, is the source for their faith and practice?
Bruce: The source of love is simply our human nature, which is common, and animal; it is also an integral and evolutionary feature of our very survival that is hard-wired in utero as we develop within the biological fold of our mother’s body, serenaded by her voice and other internal rhythms. It makes sense that people are drawn back into that place in many different ways, often subconsciously. “Only connect” W. Forster said. The relatively male, hierarchical idea of some god or other in charge is firstly, that–just another IDEA– but is also a “supernatural” one, which means that it is UNnatural, and therefore necessarily detached from US. It’s power comes from the fact that, once inserted, especially if the indoctrination begins in childhood, it continues to float stubbornly in our minds as THE construct, despite its contradictory detachment from our wild, bodily essence. It pales in comparison. But I think its enduring appeal lies in its acclaimed and wholly accepted “agency” as a welcome reprieve and a remove from our “unbearable lightness of being.” But we pay an enormous price personally and collectively for this massive delusion. “Islamophobia” is bandied about as being a fully negative concept, but the doctrine of Islam, like all religions, is what is actually the problem here. It’s a set of fixed, alarmingly misogynist, punitive medieval ideas to be considered and potentially adopted or rejected, but is treated instead as an immutable feature of our humanity, like our variable, pulsing minds and the colour of our eyes. Obviously, nothing condones violence toward the disciples, or the victims of Islam, a.k.a. Muslims, but passing mention should certainly be made simultaneously of the horrific violence perpetrated in the name of this “Allah” idea. It’s disingenuous to so entirely omit the context.
Love the poem Gretta.
Thank you, Bruce, for raising the question. We have shifted our path along this ancient trajectory, fully aware that the “practice” or the “prayerful perspective” of prayer resonates deeply within us. In my book on prayer, Amen, I assert that the actions that we think of as prayer are those deeply human realities that religion wrapped with doctrinal purpose. So we need to feel awe, to see ourselves convicted in another’s eyes, to be grateful for life itself and the myriad ways we experience it, and to acknowledge the fundamental sorrows that we and others bear. The god called God has been worshiped as the source of all our goodness, robbing us of the truth that we, ourselves, we are the source of the goodness we bring into the world; it isn’t the result of a divine being’s capricious interventions. When we don’t take responsibility for the goodness, we might never deepen our capacities or rise up to make changes needed in our own lives, in the lives of those around us, or in the world. The biggest difference between what happens in my community when they do what they once called prayer – the community sharing time – is that everyone there is engaged in the challenge of holding through a time of sorrow, creating connections that previously did not exist, and offering support in meaningful ways. God doesn’t answer prayers; people do. But sometimes, there is no answer, and then, we simply hold one another and share the grief.
The Bible is a book that rose far higher than its worth; it is a human construction which bears the scars of human learning. Still, people hold to it as though it doesn’t recommend horrific things like slaughtering every person left at the end of a war except for the virgins and young girls, who can be kept as war booty. I could go on. Hamstringing horses is another cringe-worthy command. To suggest that there is no foundation for love outside the Bible is unhelpful or misguided in the context of the hatred described within the same book.
Thank you for being so clear on what prayer means (or does not mean) to you. Where it takes you, where it cannot take you. For me, prayer is one of the ways to deepen my relationship with the undefinable All that bears us, holds us, births us and renews in us a sense of our place in love. I appreciate that you have a different relationship, that you speak your truth in other words, that you and I walk different trails into love. Thank you for walking yours. Mine is delightful too.
Who Knows?
Who Knows?
The measure
Of a “How?”
Or “Why?”
Or the dimensions
Of a question
That sneaks out of the soul or mind
And demands a response?
Who knows the length
Of a path,
Taken or not taken,
When time presses
In urgent demand
And both doubt and hope
Color the landscape?
Only the myth makers knows!
And the answers are given
In symbols and pageants;
In clouds that move in the sky!
In the safe of the “keeper of dreams”
Who manages the realm of seduction!
Who knows
Where an answer to
“This!”
Will provide solution to
“That”
Which is in another land,
Where searchers are surprised and awed!
Who knows
When a game is played
And efforts are launched
To go behind the scene,
And into the scene,
To discover secret transactions
Only the mystery maker knows.
Who knows
When just a little shove
Will open a door,
Never to be shut again,
That presents a view
That will change
Everything?
Only the myth makers knows!
And the answers are given
In symbols and pageants;
In clouds that move in the sky!
In the safe of the “keeper of dreams”
Who manages the realm of seduction!
Who knows
The measure of an hour
Or its ability to produce;
Whether in slow motion or fast,
How it will move from moment to moment
Releasing freely, or holding greedily,
Information just below (or above) its surface?
Who knows
The perfect combination
Or sureness and humble doubt
That is needed to keep moving
With a smile of freedom
And a stride of pride,
Willing to be taught a lesson?
Only the myth makers knows!
And the answers are given
In symbols and pageants;
In clouds that move in the sky!
In the safe of the “keeper of dreams”
Who manages the realm of seduction!
Who knows
The dimensions of the dash
Between the date of birth and death,
Or the stories
Chucked on the pages of its years
Or the pictures carved in the stone
Of history?
Who knows
When a gift will come
Wrapped in Christmas paper
To bless with a surprise,
To heal with the oil of a promise,
To stimulate like a cup of coffee,
And brings angels to sing over the bed at night?
Only the myth makers knows!
And the answers are given
In symbols and pageants;
In clouds that move in the sky!
In the safe of the “keeper of dreams”
Who manages the realm of seduction!
Who knows
How a phoenix can rise from ashes,
When the boarder walls will come down at last,
When the raging noise of the worlds rush
Will give in to the rustle of a creature
Preparing a home for nesting
And gifting the world with new life?
Who knows
The power of a dream that captures the soul
And calls it to paint a ceiling in a chapel,
Or signal out the notes of a symphony,
Or build an organ or a skyscraper,
Or fix a man behind the machine
That explore a “never, never” land?
Only the myth makers knows!
And the answers are given
In symbols and pageants;
In clouds that move in the sky!
In the safe of the “keeper of dreams”
Who manages the realm of seduction!
Who knows
Where the answers are?
Whether under a glacier
Or in boiling thermo streams deep in the sea,
Whether in the Arctic or Anarctic,
Whether is demanding work
Or in a vision in bed?
Who know
Who has the answer
When uncertainty casts a shadow on a day,
And storms puncture past securities
And fear clamps tight on tired muscles,
And ears are tuned only to jazz or heavy rock
And the white dove of peace never takes a perch.
Who knows when a whispered or spoken word
Signals a message with roots
That will grow into a bearer of gifts
For generations to enjoy?
Or a dream fed with hope
Takes the form of actions
Never expected or even anticipated.
Only the myth makers knows!
And the answers are given
In symbols and pageants;
In clouds that move in the sky!
In the safe of the “keeper of dreams”
Who manages the realm of seduction!
George L. Bell
April 8, 2019
George! My apologies for not replying sooner. This is wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing it here.
Tough Questions
How go your prayers, woman?
You, man, how go your prayers,
Like squirrels in a forest,
Or like flies against a window?
Like lightbeams
In milliseconds e’en
To a distant planet,
Or, perhaps,
Like flyballs
To deep left-center
In a vacant stadium,
Looking good
But settling…
Uncaught, unsought,
By empty popcorn boxes
Under seats
In run-down bleachers?
(Homeruns,
As it were,
But no one’s
At the game.)
Your prayers, man,
Does God
Net them,
Swat them,
Reflect them,
Catch them?
Look,
Does she answer them?
And, if so,
Is there but one
True, celestial mailman?
(Of course, or mail woman)
And, if so,
What constitutes
Sufficient postage?
Tough questions, all.
Thank you for this beautiful reflection, Fabian. My apologies for not responding sooner!
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