Oh, the Audacity.............

It's almost Easter. Yep, that good ol day when we can eat Peeps, chocolate, hard boiled eggs and - I suppose the lucky chosen ones - get to see Jesus blast off again in his annual escape from planet Earth. Absolutely cool. I'm basically a crappy Christian. I hate people most of the time and don't want to help anyone usually. Not quite a Republican, mind you, but getting there. So, last year I wrote this little article. Called it "The Audacity of Prayer". Got published in a national magazine of sorts read by the chosen people who see Jesus in the Rocket on Easter. Man! I wish my faith was like that. I won't see Him on that day I suppose. It's hard to view from under the bus.

The Audacity of Prayer.....

I am a cradle Episcopalian. This means that I started to read and study the bible in my late 40's. Well, that's just me I guess. But I've stayed around. Episcopalians are cool. They don't try to ram belief down your throat. They care. Oh my, they care. Another reason I've stayed around. I have had company through the years with doubting Thomases. I've sat in the back of the adult classes and made jokes and fun, running in the hall with scissors and making faces. Anything I suppose to maybe get the attention or raise the ire of My God. To see if He was there.
I've always known God was there, is there, will be there. It's down deep in me. So deep I can't seem to get at it. I've been mad at God from time to time. I've sinned on purpose just to make Him mad. The fact that He has never lost His temper with me is maddening. Mad, mad. I mean, our whole church prayed and prayed and prayed for one of our dear parishioners, a mom with a husband, two sons, to get cured of her cancer. And she did get better. For a time. Then she died. Wha… Hey! C’mon, God. Just look at how hard we prayed and worked and made prayer chains until we were blue. And she died. No fair. Prayer doesn’t work, does it?
I can’t tell you the number of times I have abandoned it. Prayer. How stupid I’ve felt, getting on my knees in the privacy of my house. What if someone saw me? What would they think? God forbid. But, that’s a sort of prayer isn’t it? I’m 60 now and wondering if I will grow into Christian maturity. The older I get the more I realize how far I have to go to get to the peace that passes all understanding. I’ve packed quite a bit of study into the last 20 years I suppose. Much more than the first forty, when I was far more intelligent.
I’ve had to abandon some logic to get accustomed the idea that prayer was more about a relationship with God. A personal relationship. He sent His Son down here to help us with that. Help us to conceptualize God as a person, a friend, someone you could see and talk with, walk with, shake hands with, hug. And it has helped. I’ve had to get over the image of Jesus’ picture hanging in the Sunday school rooms across America in his rock star locks and white robe. Who thought of that? That’s ok. We’ve all grown to accept it. And it helped me in my younger years, talking to Jesus as maybe Ted Nugent riding with me in the car. Pretty cool. But Ted is old now. Jesus still looks the same. I saw him the other day in the church office. Same guy.
As I prepare for my 5th Cursillo I have had to launch into the prayer thing yet again. Jesus is still the same. And it’s amazing how much He has learned since I was 40. He has helped me get to my God place somewhere in my soul. I can never find it on my on. He always has to help me. And my prayer is all about our relationship. It’s ok. I have put away my demands and expectations and God does pretty well without my help. But it’s so very cool that He wants to hear from me before He acts on things. He doesn’t always do what I want, but he’s much older than me (though you’d never know it from his picture) and is far better at working things out. Praise be to My Friend. My Friend Jesus. My Lord and my God. (As Thomas finally said.)