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So Many Prayer Concerns

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It becomes harder to pray as I look around at near-daily mass shootings, the war in Ukraine, my family’s illness, and the deterioration of my denomination. I feel like I’m talking to myself. Prayer seems like the only thing I can do, my only option, and it doesn’t appear to have any impact on the carnage unfolding in Walmart breakrooms, at the Raleigh Christmas parade, in a Colorado Springs LGBTQI club, in my dad’s lymph nodes, or missile attacks on Kyiv’s elementary schools. People keep dying at the worst possible time of the year for people to die.

Tragic, unexpected death is never welcome, but it always seems worse when it happens at Christmas. For some reason, we want to be together at this time of year. Despite our petty differences, we feel drawn to the Thanksgiving and Christmas table. When a seat is made vacant, whether through cancer, murder, or war, it hurts in indescribable ways, that’s a pain you can’t put into words, let alone prayer that has any emotional or spiritual coherence.  Our prayers are more like self-soothing babble because that’s all we know how to do. If you can find eloquent words to match this societal hurt, you’ve not felt the punch in the gut brought by the cumulative pain of recent days.

When we pray on Sunday morning, the only people we know who are listening are those in the pews. It is a supreme act of faith to assume that God is listening, especially when our words appear to have little impact on reality. We pray for peace and see more war. We pray for love to see hate grow stronger. Something isn’t working. We’ll focus on a single miracle at the expense of hundreds of unanswered prayers. We sit, wait, speak, and hope God will act. Our prayers, while heartfelt, are inherently passive. Have we considered acting upon our prayers? What if we matched our words and our actions equally?  We become both prayer and an answer in-progress. Imagine prayer as a cooperative endeavor. We would call this liturgy “the work of the people.”

The immediate reality our prayers change is the reality we change ourselves. If we want to answer a prayer, we must become the answer. We prayerfully and actively invest in the kingdom of God, which is at hand. If we convince ourselves to wait for God (or others, like Congress, a President, public opinion, etc.) to act, more people will die. I believe God wants to hear our prayers and see them become tangible actions.

It is hard to pray. The world is in a difficult place. We shouldn’t shy away from naming our challenges. Are we content with being desperate observers, or do we want to be active participants in God’s ongoing kingdom? The answer to that question depends on how comfortable you are with being more than a passive prayer.

–Richard Bryant

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Crypto-Mourning

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To grieve with any level of authenticity, we must not be selective in who (or how) we mourn. To name a loss worthy of memory, sorrow, and joy (in a life well lived) is an act of supreme defiance in a world where we store our wealth in a currency named for the Greek word “hidden” or “secret.” We live hidden and transient lives. Everything we value about life, even its inevitable ending, is obscured with each new mass shooting, virus, disease, and missile attack. Those who die remain unseen, off-camera, and hidden beyond well-word catchphrases and slick camera angles. Even before the pandemic, the affluent west invested heavily in crypto-mourning. This is the process of continually moving our thoughts, prayers, and concerns from one tragedy to another (as one would move money to offshore accounts) but never asking, “Do these prayers have any real value unless we transfer them as hard spiritual currency into our lives and act upon them?”

While all death is death, the world values the memories of some deceased differently. Thus, we grieve some victims longer and more viscerally than others. We invest in acts of community and corporate sorrow. Candlelight vigils and community gatherings have done what I once thought impossible: made grief cliché, predictable, and ephemeral. Our grief becomes public, or so we claim, and then we move on. We wait for the next tragedy, and the cycle repeats. The problem isn’t too many people sending meaningless thoughts and prayers. Instead, we’ve made grieving a public media-driven production. Persons whose trauma and grief are too immense to step into this spotlight are largely forgotten. For so many, the vast majority of those in hospitals and homes worldwide, there are no witnesses to the realities of grief preparing to be confronted at this time we force each other to call “joyful.” Their grief isn’t sensational, but it is real.

–Richard Bryant

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The Cold

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The cold slows me down. I’m not used to my bones aching, and it is difficult to move in the mornings. Since my shoulder surgery last summer, there have been pains in my arms that keep coming back despite the physical therapy regimen I’ve done for 18 months. Yes, when you step outside, the wind hits your face and reminds us that you are alive; the temperature tells our bodies to tell us we are mortal, and we reach for the hot chocolate, soup recipes, and warm blankets as we turn up the Christmas music. We’ll do just about anything to stay warm.

As it becomes cold outside, we physically slow down, and all we can do is layer up. You can wear gloves, a hat, a scarf, and a heavy coat. All those items will keep you warm on the outside. However, don’t let yourself and your spirit grow cold on the inside. There is a spark of divinity within each of us, and I always worry in the winter that we’ll let that holy fire, the spark of creation that rests in our souls, grow cold. 

We can’t allow cold weather, illness, distance, travel, and holiday obligations to turn us into cold, unfeeling people. It’s easy to fall into the holiday rat race; we put on our blinders, block out the world, and focus on the superficialities of warmth. We too easily neglect our inner spiritual fire. Just as I sit down with a hot bowl of soup to keep my body functioning, I need to do the same with my soul. A cold soul leads to a cold heart. If I have a cold heart, my feet may be warm and my stomach full, but my soul also needs to be fed. If I go spiritually hungry, the grief and fear will gnaw away at my spirit until the sun never rises again.

–Richard Bryant

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Grief Part 3

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Don’t sit on it.

Don’t hold it in.

Don’t put it back in the box.

Don’t return it to sender.

Open the box.

Talk about it.

Look in the mirror.

Stare it down.

Find a word, name it, claim it.

Say something, to anyone.

Allow yourself to have the last word, even if it’s for today.

You can speak to the grief tomorrow, it will wait.

At least you’ve started the conversation.

–Richard Bryant

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Grief Part 2

What was it like to receive tragic news by telegram? Over the past six days, I’ve been told that someone died over the phone (a 19th century means of communication), updated on my father’s possible chemotheraphy treatment options via email, and heard similar concerns from my parishioners through electonrically circulated lists. What would it have been like to receive one of those tiny pieces of paper from Western Union? What was the emotional impact of a telegram?

Perhaps I’m wrong; grief doesn’t appear as a neat and tidy gift. It doesn’t arrive in a box, waiting for the right time and place to open. Sometimes, grief is a folded piece of paper. Grief lands in your life like an awkward glance you were never meant to see but can’t unsee. Grief is two-dimensional, flat, and waits for a three-dimensional existence. It need not be a response to death. Grief arrives with spiritual indifference. Grief cares not about what God we worship or the creed we confess. Like the self it inhabits, it wants to be acknowledged as real, valued, and worthy of love.

–Richard Bryant

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Separation

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It is impossible to separate the cancers in our souls from those in our vital organs and bloodstreams. Toxic physical environments lead to cancer. Toxic churches lead to toxic theology and spiritual cancer. We have treatments for the former. I’ve met no one serious about undergoing spiritual chemotherapy. It’s too hard on our cherished assumptions, theological preconceptions, and well-defined notions of God.

–Richard Bryant

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Stage IV

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He went to see the hematologist this morning. I called him to see how the visit went.

“Well, what did the doctor say?” I sounded impatient. I knew he’d been back for at least an hour and the fact I’d not received an email or a phone call meant he probably didn’t receive good news.

“It’s stage IV”.

Deep breath.

“That’s the worst stage,” I said. “There is no stage V.”

“Yes,” he replied. “They think it was probably at stage I back in the summer but it’s moved pretty fast.”

Deflect. 

Why did the doctors drag their feet between blood tests and scheduling his diagnostic appointments if this thing was moving so fast? Of course, I didn’t say that though I was pretty sure we were both thinking the same thing. What good would it do now to state the obvious?

Now it’s on to the committee. We know it’s aggressive and moving at speed. I have the feeling his medical treatment and doctor visits will grow more frequent in the coming weeks. The words “Stage IV” convey a sense of urgency that is impossible to ignore. I hope the cancer committee will place us on their agenda.

Do I need to make a motion to be on God’s agenda? Isn’t that the formal definition of a prayer request? In working through this morning’s prayer concerns for my church community, I wondered: what right do I have to be heard amidst all the suffering, pain, and illness present in the world today? Does that assumed privilege reside in my humanity, faith, baptism, or somewhere else? So many people with cancer and cancer in their families are ahead of us on the global prayer list. If prayer is a first come, first serve proposition, my family is near the bottom. Are prayers for cancer answered by the severity and type of cancer? Who knows? 

Here’s the honest truth: I don’t want to bother God with my problems when I know others are suffering worse than me. That’s my nature. It’s who I am as a person. I don’t like to put people out. I know the answer I’d give if someone said something like this to me (as a pastor). I’d say, “that’s nonsense.” But honestly, I know how I feel. There are so many people suffering in the world. Why should I share my baggage while people freeze to death in Ukraine and children die of cancer? Yet here I sit, typing away, trying to make sense of the nonsense and hoping God is reading along.

–Richard Bryant

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Biopsy Results Part II

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8:38 AM. The biopsy results arrived this morning. They were delivered to his email via MyChart, the ubiquitous bearer of all medical news in 21st-century America. He forwarded a copy to me. The diagnosis, read by a pathologist, confirmed the earlier findings from the bone marrow biopsy: lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma.

He tells me the next step is a meeting with a committee of hematologists and oncologists who will examine his blood tests and earlier biopsy to determine how best to treat his form of leukemia. A committee? I don’t like committees. Having served, chaired, and still sitting on numerous committees, I have an inherent distrust of the deliberative process made manifest in committees, particularly church committees. Committees are one of the most dysfunctional means humans have found for making decisions. Putting human life into a committee’s hands is almost too dystopian to consider, especially when it’s happening to your father.

Do the members of this cancer committee get along with one another? How do their egos impact their decisions? Do they see their patients as people or just names on a page? Will they hold a vote on the right course of action? Are their votes determined by a simple majority, two-thirds of those present, or like a jury (since man’s life is at stake)? In other words, do their decisions need to be unanimous? Do family members have any voice in their process? They don’t answer those questions if you send the doctor a message via MyChart. So here I sit, in the waiting room called today.

–Richard Bryant

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Seasons?

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I’ve noticed an obnoxious religious expression gaining popularity among my colleagues and other religious types. I hear it every time we gather, so much so that it’s now a cliché. I’m not fond of trite, theological sayings. I loathe them. Phrases that mask our emotions and gussy up our true feelings in a fancy-sounding liturgical language only make it harder for regular people to come to terms with the trauma they’re experiencing. What do I mean? 

“Season of Lament” is a saying that combines the word “season” with (lament) or another pretentious religious or Biblical word. It sounds polite, discrete, and refined. Above all, it is detached from reality. It’s word salad, indicative of my denomination’s ongoing inability to be authentic and honest about its divisions and why many (on both sides of the theological spectrum) are angry with mainline Protestantism. We hide behind our language. Friendly, well-educated people say nice, comforting things. I agree, in principle. However, when your world is going to hell in a handbasket, it’s okay to acknowledge it in something other than a quiet, respectful monotone. It’s okay to scream and say something other than scripted lines designed never to offend the failing status quo.

I’ve read the Diary of Anne Frank, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago. Each of these works describes living through hell on earth. None of them ever use the phrase “season of lament” or “season” of anything. But, they do tell the reader, in no uncertain terms, how bad it sucks to live and die in a concentration camp or Stalinist purge. I find their honesty refreshing. We’re afraid to say how lousy life is and it sometimes sucks, that we’re in crummy situations, and there’s not a damn thing most of us can do about it. We can acknowledge the present while admitting hope for the future, however feeble those calls for hope might be. Isn’t that the point of the minor prophets? I think so.

I don’t trust the overzealous merchants of hope who give “seasonal” lipservice to the realities of the present. We’ve got to get through today, tonight, and tomorrow. The present sucks. People have cancer today. They will die tomorrow. It’s not a season. It’s now.

–Richard Bryant

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