Day 185 - If I only could...

 

I went back to AI to find out if my attempts to get answered prayer were actually just part of the grieving process. I was wondering if I was somehow stuck in the bargaining stage – after all, I do want to effectively make a deal with God…

Q. What is the bargaining stage of grief? (I asked, forgetting everything I had learned about AI prompt engineering needing to be specific and detailed).

A. The bargaining phase is the third stage of grief according to the Five Stages of Grief model by Kübler-Ross and Kessler. It is characterized by a desire to negotiate with a higher power in an attempt to reverse or delay the loss. During this stage, you may try to negotiate with yourself or a higher power to undo or change the loss. It is a defence mechanism against the pain and helplessness of grief. It may involve asking "what if?" questions or making promises. I hope this helps you understand the bargaining phase of grief. Please let me know if you have any other questions.

I had heard that the five stages of grief model had largely been discredited and that the whole process, with the golden fleece of ‘acceptance’ were more nuanced and individual in practice. If there is one thing I should have learned by now, it is that not everyone is going through exactly the same things I am going through and have been through…

Q. Elaborate on the bargaining stage of grief and about how it applies AFTER a death.

The bargaining stage is a normal part of the grieving process that can occur after a death. It is characterized by a desire to negotiate with a higher power in an attempt to reverse the loss.

The bargaining stage can be especially difficult after a death because it can be hard to accept that the person is gone. You may feel like you could have done something differently to prevent the loss. You may also feel like you need more time with the person who has died.

It’s important to remember that everyone grieves differently and there is no right or wrong way to grieve. If you are struggling with grief, it may be helpful to talk to a therapist or counsellor who can help you work through your feelings and develop coping strategies.

I hope this helps you understand the bargaining phase of grief after a death. Please let me know if you have any other questions.

AI, as ever, was as useful as trying to find an entrance to Elysium. Our robotic overlords are not always helpful. But perhaps in a few years’ time they will be joining in with the cruel cosmic ironies of the gods…

I digress – The point is that I don’t think I can bring my brother back from the dead. But if prayer requests are part of the grief bargaining stage, then, yes, I do want to remain in the bargaining stage, until the prayers are answered.

And I’m being particularly impossible by keeping my past prayer requests between myself and God. He knows exactly what they are.

Am I supposed to consider my actions and words in the liminal time between prayer and answered prayer as… a test? Perhaps if I behave myself perfectly and resume prayer and do all of the things I am supposed to do and say then the prayers will be answered? Praise and thank the Almighty and it might placate him and surely THEN he will finally answer the prayers? Bow to his conditions. Please him, like you might go about pleasing Zeus - or your chosen god?

Maybe, like the lotus eaters, it is wiser to remain in the bargaining stage. That is my thinking. Odysseus can shake his fist at Poseidon and Zeus and get on with the task of lotus eating. Eat the fruit to relieve the pain. Or wonder why the poppy fields are so red. Bring no supplies back to the good ship of his home country, a ship which will not necessarily treat you kindly anyway. Better to go native on a supply hunt. Why set sail again? For the sake of Truth? For Penelope and the good of Olympus? Or simply because we have little choice?

Let us choose our gods and goddesses carefully. Let us hope that they are on our side.

Mine seems to be too busy with his ambrosia to care much for us mortals.

Day 178 - Six months without prayer

 

In a few days, on the 25^th June (this coming Sunday), it will have been six months since my brother died.

I’m not sure how many tenses I mixed up in that sentence, but you probably understood it.

Just like you probably understand that it takes longer than six months to get over something like this.

I’m likening my prayer-strike to swimming upstream in a river. That’s my helpful simile anyway. Not sure if I will find anything at the source, or if there is even anything there.

I’m probably swimming in the wrong direction anyway.

There have been no answered prayers in these six months, so if God wanted to set an example for anybody NOT to do what I am doing, then he has been very thorough. In minutely, painstakingly, deliberately refusing to answer the prayers which I have already requested of him.

So, as I continue to swim upstream, I am vaguely aware of the things I am supposed to do and the things I am not supposed to do.

I am supposed, for example, to start praying again and testify to how wonderful God has been through it all, even at times when I did not see how very merciful he was being towards me. I am not currently in a position to offer any such statement, but I would be willing to lie if it helped the cause. I am not beyond lying. It’s just that if I start praising God for his patience, mercy and comfort at this point, I don’t feel I would actually be telling the truth. Things have been, and remain, pretty crap.

What I’m not supposed to do is to leave the faith. I’m not doing that either, because I still believe. Although, like others, I have the right to and know where the door is. After all, I’m not getting on with my intrepid leader. But, if you want me to praise God some more, I can offer this…

He’s sometimes a bit of an arse.

I’ll let him carefully ponder that statement in the midst of all the other agenda-less worship he receives from so many. Worship for things He Hasn’t Even Done Yet. Or maybe he would like to bring such deliberately written statements up on judgment day? All the sober, sombre faces can then shake their heads in disapproval.

Well, it’s not judgment day yet. But some of us are already there in our heads…

“Is it true, Nicholas, that on the 22^nd June 2023, you described the Almighty, the Lord God of Hosts, the Holy One of Israel, as ‘a bit of an arse’? Having previously publicly called him ‘a thief’? Answer truthfully now, sinner, because you are in the company of the righteous.”

“No sir, I wrote it two days earlier on the 20^th June in preparation for the blog. I could have said worse. There were mitigating circumstances. I previously used the words ‘jewel thief’. I deleted the whole series of blog entries when the third world war broke out and, by the way, that was really hard to deal with after the pandemic and everything. I think…”

“Enough!”

Well, in all honesty, there will probably be no smart answers from me on that day.

In the meantime, while we all ponder what we may (and may not) get asked come judgment day, I suggest we continue to try to survive.

And I shall attempt to keep you updated on any significant findings or events on my river-journey.

Day 171 - No sympathy for the devil

 

In a couple of weeks, it will have been six months since my brother died.

I had to go to a hospital again yesterday. While in a waiting room (where the walls are saturated with the memory of people’s anxieties), I overheard two women chatting. They talked about how difficult it must be to work in the NHS, one of them talked about the importance of not complaining (effectively complaining about those who complain) and the other made a comment about death.

“I’m not afraid of death,” she said, “When it comes, it comes.”

(I thought she was going to quote Woody Allen’s reported quip, “I’m not afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens.”)

I’m never quite sure how to react when someone says they are not afraid of death. In some ways I’m always a little bit doubtful that they are telling the truth. I am afraid of death, but at least I am brave enough to admit that. I’m afraid of everything ending and what may happen after death (as I have said before, I have doubts about my eternal destination).

The two women finished their chat and seemed less anxious for it. Maybe this person simply did not fear death. Maybe some people just aren’t afraid of it. Or maybe they are full of misplaced bravado. I don’t know.

The hospital seemed functional, but as ever, the NHS staff looked overworked and troubled – not helped by the lack of support from central Government. No wonder the NHS make so many mistakes.

Last year I had a conversation about fear and anxiety with my brother. He agreed that often it feels like it doesn’t come from within and that it can even be orchestrated by those with power. During the pandemic I noted that there was such a sense of fear, and to be honest, I felt that the source of a lot of that fear was sinister. It turned out, we know now, that the Government wanted to (as they secretly put it), ‘scare the pants off everyone’, to keep us controllable. I think the WhatsApp messages which revealed this will be forgotten in a few years’ time, but it is such a scandal that it turned out to be our own Government who wanted us to be scared. And who can say that much of the fear we still often feel after the pandemic is not orchestrated by them?

It might be wise to see that fear is probably not going to go away any time soon. Fear is real. Too real for some of us…

A person may say something like: “You don’t fear death, you fear life!”

I’m never quite sure what to do with that one. Maybe there is a kernel of truth in it. But I’m pretty sure that the fear of death doesn’t help us to enjoy life. I fear death. And torture. Sharks. And repeats of the horror film ‘Event Horizon’. I don’t think that’s so unusual. I’m not sure I fear life. I don’t think I do. Hard to say, isn’t it?

What I find helpful for fear is breathing exercises and simply acknowledging that the fear is there and waiting for it to recede. As the black ring I now wear on my right hand reads, ‘This too shall pass’.

It is a nod to King Solomon who needed a ‘magic’ ring which would lift him during times of depression (and conversely keep him grounded during rare (for some of us) times of elation or joy). The worst is when the only choice is to endure something. Dutch courage can help, but for personal reasons I’m having to steer clear of that (and other things). I am of the kind who cannot always do things in moderation (and have the history to prove it).

My brother agreed with me when we spoke about it – that it is such a scandal that a Government can play on people’s fears, get found out for doing so, and STILL carry on doing it. It is something that should be at least noted and witnessed. And ideally changed. I miss those conversations. I miss my brother.

So, there is something very sinister about it all as far as I am concerned.

Aside from God, some of us do have a spiritual enemy, you know? And it’s not Putin - Russia is not the author of all our pain.

I can assure you… I have no sympathy for the devil.

Day 164 - Is the prayer strike working?

 

No reason to start praying again even if my prayer strike doesn’t seem to be working.

And I’m not inclined to apologise to the Almighty at the moment. To be honest, I feel he owes some of us an apology.

Pride, I’m sure.

You won’t find Christ apologizing for anything in the gospels (or, weirdly, saying please, or thanking anyone but his heavenly Father (basically thanking himself)). Not once. One might imagine that he would have apologized after bumping into someone in some crowd once or twice, or maybe he did a shoddy job on some piece of furniture and bodged the nail-work and had a run-in with a carpentry customer.

Who knows? As his followers conveniently (and often sycophantly) say today, ‘He’s got nothing to apologise for’. Or, if they are a little kinder, ‘You’re going to be waiting a long time if you expect God to apologise to you.’ Nothing, it seems, is impossible for God, except for that… and a few other things. Things like not letting brothers die too early.

But I don’t even want an apology (though it would be nice). I want God to answer my occasional past prayers. And they are and will remain between me and him, although I can say that some of them were not entirely selfish and were to make things better even for you, patient reader. Basically, one of the reasons I’m not praying is in order to get prayers answered (because praying definitely didn’t work).

I could have written a book about prayer. Or about my relationship with it. As I say, it is harder to stop praying than you may imagine. It sounds easy. Lazy even. After all, many people do not pray at all. But it isn’t that easy. The ex-Christians know this and sometimes write about it. That, and the lingering fear of an (agreed-by-me-to-be-unfair) … hell.

But I could have written a book on prayer. Except, why would anyone want to read a book on prayer by someone who has had so few answered? Let the prosperity preachers write their books about how God has made them rich and successful and how it has had nothing to do with the fact that they give love a bad name by fleecing their congregations.

Prayer is greedy like that. Always wanting more.

So, no prayers answered. The prayer-strike seems not to be working.

The Almighty doesn’t need my prayers; he’s made that clear. So, what is his problem?

As my prayers are so utterly useless, it doesn’t matter if I carry on with the strike then, does it?

It will end when the conditions have been met.

Day 157 - A little story about prayer

 

'Meet like-minded people' (AI generated image)

I thought I would simply post a joke about prayer this week. Not mine, but if you haven’t heard it before, it’s quite good. (I’ve tweaked it a little to reflect my Pentecostal church background – but I’m allowed to do that.)

 

A famous coffee company arranges an urgent meeting with the Chair of the World Assemblies of God Fellowship.

After being led to the Chair’s plush main office, the coffee official whispers,
"You’re a difficult man to reach. I’ve come to propose an offer for you…

We are prepared to ‘donate’ £111 million to the Pentecostal church if you change the Lord's Prayer from ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ to ‘Give us this day our daily coffee.’"

The Chair responds, "That’s impossible. The prayer is the very word of the Lord. It must not be changed. Prayers are powerful. We believe in the power of prayer. It is unthinkable!"

"Well," says the coffee man, "we anticipated your reluctance. For this reason, we will increase our offer to £333 million."

"It’s impossible, the prayer is the eternal, unchanging word of the Lord. It cannot be altered! Besides, we are merely one part of the whole worldwide… admittedly slightly disunified… Church."

The coffee guy says, "Sir. We respect your public adherence to matters of faith, but we do have one final offer.... We will donate £66…6 million to your church if you would only change the Lord's Prayer from ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ to ‘Give us this day our daily coffee’... Please consider it."

And he leaves.

The next day the Chair convenes with his church executive council.

"There is some good news," he announces, "and some bad news. The good news is that the Assemblies of God will come into a very useful £66…3 million.'"

"And the bad news?" asks a colleague.

"We're losing the Warburtons account."