Prayer and the charging rhino

I've made notes for half a dozen posts -- probably more.  I might even write a couple of them one day.  But this will be quick.

I saw this article the other day:  http://www.independent.com/news/2014/sep/24/pray-tell-hocus-pocus-happy-thoughts/

And so I wrote the author a fan e-mail:
__________

Dear Ms. Roshell,

First, I'm sorry that someone you loved had to go through a Year of Intolerable Shit.  I'm sorry that in the end nothing worked.  You don't need some idiot stranger to tell you how bad it is for all that to happen, but I recognize that it's really, really bad.

All that, though, is a prologue to saying, Thank you for your article "The Hocus Pocus of Happy Thoughts."  In the midst of Intolerable Shit you say something important about prayer, and you say it well.

Or rather, you say two different things – and that is part of what makes your article so good.  On the one hand, yes, there is the side of the discussion that involves a certain kind of … let's call it metaphysical reasoning, which gets murkier the closer you look at it for exactly the reasons you identify.  What good does prayer do?  Isn't it even a little insulting?  Or is there an angle you can choose from which it doesn't look so bad after all?  And so on …. 

It is true that a lot of ink has been spilled by a lot of people trying to answer these questions, and it's no surprise that some of those writers say interesting things of their own.  Fine, whatever – you're not trying to write a treatise or cover the literature.  That's not the point right now.  And the theoretical objections you make are sound ones that have to be answered by anybody who encourages others to pray.

What is particularly good about your article is that you also recognize the emotional side of the question which is more or less impervious to metaphysical quibbling – the side that recognizes "This may make no sense, but I'm hurting too much to care."  The side that says, finally, "I could do nothing more, and it felt like a betrayal to do anything less."  That's exactly right and perfectly said.  I can't read it without tearing up … just a bit.

There's a puzzle here.  It's important but I don't pretend to understand it.  Thank you for an article that is open to the puzzle, accepts it for what it is, and doesn't try to force it into some tidy, Procrustean solution.

I'm still really sorry that nothing worked.

 

Best regards,

Hosea Tanatu