Kierkegaard and Little Caesar’s

I’ve been grappling with a lot of religious questions lately.

(If you’ve been following my writing recently, my apologies for stating the obvious.)

Haven’t really reached any conclusions at this point — and to be frank, this is the first time in a while I’ve even tried writing about these ideas in a non-fictional and non-verse form. With Cynthia’s story I’m working through several ideas and trying to see how they gel, and increasingly I can only think of poetry as a mixture of prayer and prophecy — there’s a reason I’ve been repeatedly writing poems about things speaking from outside of time… although I hope to be able to refine the approach there as I work through the process.

So this isn’t so much an essay as much as the prima materia for a future essay. Just dropping a few thoughts and hoping they make some sense.

Where to begin…?

Been doing a lot of praying lately. I feel almost ashamed to admit that, because it seems silly and private — something much too private to be talked about in public. Maybe because I don’t fully believe there’s anybody listening, so part of me thinks it’s just a fancy way of brainwashing myself. Carving out a God-shaped space in my mind — and who knows, maybe the hole was already there.

Anyway, the man said to “pray without ceasing,” so I’ve been giving it the old college try. Some days I totally forget and just stew in my everyday thoughts. Some days I make halfhearted attempts and feel silly doing it. But some days I manage (or I’m granted the grace to be able) to pray like I really mean it.

A lot of the prayers are things that would probably sound pathetic enough to anybody else. Mostly begging for the strength and stability to face the day like a capable and decent human being. Things like, “Please help me to stop thinking of myself. Please help me to accept life and even learn to love it. Please help me to see that others are really very similar to me and that their suffering is much like my own. Please help me to love them and help them if I can, or at least not hurt them. Please help me to love them even though they’re not perfect and there’s no holding onto them forever. Please help me to be satisfied and grateful for what I have, and not to feel any need to be cruel or manipulative.”

And you can imagine the kind of thing, I don’t need to go on with it. Or at least that’s the way it usually starts.

But on the days when things go just right, I’ll get to this state where I’ll be calm, peaceful, and engaged with life. It’s like that whining infant in my soul finally goes to sleep.

Then I’ll think something like, “Hey… would you believe it, there’s actually a world out here beyond all those obsessive thoughts, the anxiety, and the constant urge to run away. A living world with people in it! Would you believe such things are still possible?”

And suddenly I’ll be brimming over with affection for everyone around me. All the strangers standing around waiting for their pizza at Little Caesar’s suddenly seem beautiful. The man over there with his Bengals mask looking at his phone, or the woman in yoga pants tapping her claws on the counter while she waits for marinara sauce, or any of a half-dozen others — suddenly I can see them.

These aren’t strangers. These are people! Real life, living people, just like you and me.

And all so beautiful I could cry.

This might all sound terribly trite or banal, but it can happen. It’s happened more than once for me — and maybe, just maybe, it’s possible to learn to live that way. To humble yourself enough, or at least manage to look away from yourself enough to dissolve the veil of your own thoughts and expectations. To feel, rather than just pay lip service to, the idea that life is a precious gift.

And when I’m granted the gift of being able to see that, it’s incredible. It’s beyond anything.

Of course, most days I’m just as caught up in my own personal bullshit as I’ve ever been. And intellectually I’m just as dissatisfied as ever. But when all my fear and resentment and feelings of deprivation can vanish and turn into love and connection and gratitude… even if only for a time, that’s not nothing.

Kierkegaard wrote something to the effect that prayer doesn’t change God, but it changes the one who prays. There may be something to that.

Well, I told you I was going to tackle several different ideas today, but I’ve ended up only talking about prayer. (And I’m still a little embarrassed over talking about it in the first place!)

We’re still living in the shadow of the death of God. And I could go on for hours and hours about the relative pros and cons of Christianity as opposed to paganism — both of which have their own distinct appeals and drawbacks. But still… I don’t think the tribunal of natural science will look very kindly on some weirdo saying religion is a great thing because, “When I pray obsessively it sometimes makes me not desperately wish I was dead or that the universe had never existed.”

Science is based on a woefully inadequate concept of truth, by the way.

Anyhoo. This barely pops the tab on my thoughts about religion, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I write more on the subject soon. Cynthia’s story will be back definitely by Monday, maybe by Sunday. I’m thinking of trying something new where I update Cynthia (or whatever story I’m working on at the time) Monday through Friday and just write out whatever’s on my mind on the weekends.

Sometimes I need the release from working with all those characters and plot, you know? Just kick back, relax, and talk about the ultimate nature of reality.

Lemme know whatcha think, at any rate.