People pray to their deity, or ask intercession of a saint or representative spirit, when they no longer possess control or understanding of a painful situation. I completely understand the desire to do this. In order for this activity to have any benefit, however, at least one of two things have to be true: 1)The recipient of these invocations has to exist and be endowed with the power to grant the request, and/or 2) the suppliant needs to believe absolutely that the result of his plea is the will of the godhead that they hold as supreme. For me, therefore, this type of relief is not an option, and in some ways I am saddened by its absence. What do I do, then? I take my meds regularly. I trust in science. I offer love and care to those who suffer. (I am trying to do this even for myself.) I try to make right decisions when the decision is mine to make. I try (but mostly fail) to not obsess about the things over which I have no control, and to focus instead on those over which I do. I cry a lot. I allow others to be a strength to me.
*pause*
More amusingly, however, if I may distract my mind with something I have noticed over the last month or so, I would like to posit that I, along with many others, have begun to pray in a new and different way. I don’t know if it grew out of celebrity worship or from an innate(?) belief in the healing power of well-wishes, but it seems that the various social media venues have become conduits for modern kurushii toki no kamidanomi. I have, and have seen others, tweet or FaceBook-comment celebrities in order to get them to acknowledge or address some charity event, catastrophe, or even sick friend, relative or pet. Obviously, when spreading the word has a direct correlation to the amount of assistance a cause will receive, this is an understandable petition. Those of us, however, who simply want to hear, say, Neil Gaiman wish our ill loved one well, must have some other motive. As I can only speak for myself, I can say that in my case, the use of my own despair and the pain of my pet to garner some new proximity to fame is not reason in the slightest. I cannot think that of most people, really, if their anguish is true. That, then, leaves the idea, amorphous though it may be, that obtaining this blessing from a person you hold as a role model or personal source of inspiration will somehow work a kind of magic… Are we really that in need of gods? Reading what I’ve written, I can tell you with certainty that my cerebral mind scoffs at the idea. My sad little raised-Catholic inner monkey, however, knows that anyone who can create stories or art or music or humor that moves me must be able to help somehow. A nod on twitter as the new papal wave or portent? A saved re-tweet as a modern relic, and backups as reliquaries?
I need a nap. I need a nap with all my peeps and furbabies around me. Thank you to everyone who puts up with my drivel.
Prayer (the non-celebrity kind) can take the form of cosmic yelling. Yelling is good. There’s always the possibility that it will connect with Something Out There, but you don’t have to cling to the likelihood to benefit from it. I have found that the (unpremeditated, apparently absurd) act of yelling Stop It! or Help Me! feels absolutely right in certain situations (just as the unprompted whisper of Thanks feels right in others). We’re the animal that blushes, laughs, weeps, and yells. We yell at cars that stall. It helps. So does yelling at the stars. It’s what we do. It’s what we’ve always done. Go us, I say.