February 16, 2023

Last Prayer to God

I’m not religious. I’ve written about why I’m not extensively in journal entries written long ago and I don’t care to recap it all again.

But I was religious back in my single digit years and half of my teens, when parental programming ruled the day, before I developed my own firm thoughts and opinions and beliefs — or lack of them.

I don’t miss going to church, or confession, or feeling guilty about <sex stuff> and I don’t miss the social groups and I especially don’t miss being urged to donate money to the priesthood.

What I do miss is the private talks to God. The “Are you there God, It’s Me, Margaret” type shit. It isn’t that much different than journaling on OpenDiary — it’s opening a path to your heart and then spilling your guts out about a problem. The difference is that you can ask God for a solid — the “prayer” part of talking to Him was the hope that He would make something different, take some action fix whatever thing is currently tearing you apart.

The last time I prayed was eleven years ago. My older brother M was about to miss rent — he worked at Subway and the money didn’t go far enough. He’d been interviewing for technical jobs, white collar stuff, for over a year without anything paying off, and then suddenly Company X called him back for a second interview and it went OK. I remember he called me crying, saying he didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to do either, so I asked God to help him out — my first prayer in a couple of decades. Not that I expected anything to happen — My rational inside voice thinks that talking to God is akin to discussing something with an imaginary friend. It can be helpful in the same way that therapy is helpful — it’s a way to express yourself and think things through.

M got the job, though. The comedian George Carlin was a famous Athiest and what he would say is: Well, that doesn’t mean anything. You’re missing the basics of Cause and Effect. Did your prayer cause M to get the job? Here’s what you should do. Pray to God on even days, and pray to an old Nike sneaker on odd days, and at the end of the year, tally up who is better at granting prayers. The winner will be your one true god. All hail Shoe.

Point made, Mr. Carlin. Point made.

In the dreamy part of my mind that still believes that miracles are possible, I still wonder about God. Part of me still wants to believe.

Last night my wife Jennie spoke for a while about our IVF project — “Project: Science Baby” is how I think of it in my mind. She’s banking on it happening, pretending that it’s a near certainty — we have a viable embryo to transplant from a lab into her womb sometime this spring. The more future planning she does “for the baby,” the more concerned I get about a mental and emotional crash happening if it doesn’t work out.

It needs to work out. I don’t know what it’ll do to her if it doesn’t. It won’t be good.

Around three in the morning I woke up — this is normal for me nowadays and has been for a few months. I wake up and feel Jennie breathe next to me and think about everything and nothing until my brain slows down again and I can get back to sleep.

Last night though, I felt that old part of me stir — the part of me that used to believe in God, and still sometimes wants to. There in the silence of the darkness it seemed like anything could be possible.

You can pray for this baby to happen, it said. This is the kind of thing that God has a hand in.

And so I listened to it, and prayed. I won’t write down everything I said. This would be embarrassing. It’s enough to say that I pleaded my case. I don’t ask for much. This is for Jennie, my wife, a good person, someone who helps out regular people every day at her library, someone who supports her aging and demented parents, someone who works hard and tries her best.

Halfway through the prayer it occurred to me that I don’t even know God’s thoughts on Science Babies anyway. This morning I looked it up online: Most sects of Christianity are against it, apparently.

Here’s hoping God himself is a little more tolerant.

My coworker P is out for the next two weeks. His work is getting dumped on me in abundance. It is going to ruin, minimally, today and tomorrow, but could have consequences that stretch into the next week. I hate this. I wish my job staffed appropriately so we could handle it better when people are out.

I was going to write a little about how I’m not smart or driven enough to achieve anything other than my average life — that I’ve come to the conclusion that I just lack something in those areas – I’m deficient. Anyway, writing time is over and I have to start doing P’s work, mixed in with my own work, so if I’m going to do that it’ll have to wait until tomorrow, if it happens at all.

Mental Health Therapy at 1 today, knee physical therapy at 7 at night, I have the blood flow restriction regimen that hurts and leaves me sore.

Time to face the day.