HAPPY NEW YEAR

The New Year is about to begin, in just a few hours. If we are fortunate, we will ‘ring in the New Year’ with family and friends and no or few bad things will have happened to us during the last few months.

Very likely, however, some bad things will have happened, either to our family or to our friends, or to lots of folks in lots of places in the world.

And at the same time, very wise people, friends, family, Church, etc., urge us to wish our fellow and sister creatures well and to pray for all that is best for them. And we are assured that faith can move mountains; that if we have but the faith of a grain of mustard seed; that if we seek we shall find; etc., etc..

In a word, we are assured that it is most worthwhile to pray, to pray earnestly and diligently; that our petitions will be listened to and responded to by a loving and involved and Just Creator.

How is one to square all of this with the sure knowledge that crap happens to good people, that we are all going to, or indeed have, suffered great reverses, great losses at one time or another?

Or is it all a lot of …you know what?

Well, I have been doing a little thinking about this since…well, for awhile. And I came across a line or two which might be of help to anyone having trouble with believing in the usefulness, the efficacy, of prayer.

I found the following paragraph in Amazing Grace by Kathleen Norris. I pass it on in hopes that it may be of use to you.

Sometimes people will say things like, ‘Your prayers didn’t work, but thanks.’ as if a person could be praying for only one thing. A miracle. But in the hardest situations, all one can do is to ask for God’s mercy: Let my friend die at home, Lord, and not in the hospital. Let her go quickly, God, and with her loved ones present. One Benedictine friend, a gentle, thoughtful man who has been in constant physical pain for years and is now confined to a wheelchair, says of prayer, ‘Often, all I can do is ask God, Lord, what is it you want of me?’ From him I have learned that prayer is not asking for what you think you want but asking to be changed in ways you can’t imagine. To be made more grateful, more able to see the good in what you have been given instead of always grieving for what might have been. People who are in the habit of praying – and they include the mystics of the Christian tradition – know that when a prayer is answered, it is never in a way that you expect [emphasis mine].

We should wish family and friends all that is best in the forthcoming year. We should pray for an end to injustice and terror and for victory for the Good Guys.

But the best prayer probably remains what it always has been, even if it sometimes is a bitter pill: Let Thy will be done.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!