Table of Contents | 9. Why pray when evil prevails and God doesn't seem to care?
In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn there is a revealing passage about prayer. Huckleberry says, "Miss Watson, she took me in the closet and prayed but nothin' come of it. She told me to pray every day and whatever I asked for I would git. But it warn't so. I tried it. Once I got a fish line but no hooks. It warn't no good to me without hooks. I tried for the hooks three or four times but somehow I couldn't make it work. By and by, I asked Miss Watson to try for me but she said I was a fool....I set down one time back in the woods and had a long think about it. I says to myself, 'If a body can git anything they pray for then why don't Deacon Winn git back the money he lost on pork? Why can't the widow git back her silver snuff box that was stole? Why can't Miss Watson fat up? No, says I to myself, there ain't nothin' in it'" This is the experience of many with prayer. There isn't anything to it. One perspective on this question is offered in my article entitled The God Room (1). A book by T. Wyatt Watkins describes his experiences within his family. I wrote, in part, that unanswered prayers for rain, climate control or pleasant weather for a vacation or for the Indianapolis 500 race tend to suggest divine reluctance or indifference to our human plight. This just isn't the case. We need to remember that, fundamentally, prayer is communion with a good and caring God and is a means of seeking ways to cooperate with God, not the other way around. Besides, to quote Krister Stendahl of Harvard, "I'm in sales, not management." I don't have a perspective that is broad and inclusive enough to try to run this world. In a universe wherein the geo-centric view has substantially collapsed, another view of prayer is essential. What do you think? You can reach me at my e-mail address (BobSueSand@aol.com). |