Day 304 - Not praying, but still writing

 

Although I may have stopped praying, I haven’t stopped writing. Earlier this year, in the first months after my brother died, I mapped out a sequel to my parable – The Parable of the Cold Island.

My writing has been very much influenced by Ad’s death… I’m not really sure how any writer can divorce their real lives from their writing lives.

Above is the cover for the new publication (my first physical book since 2018).

Since the pandemic, for some reason, I have found it very hard to read. I have read some books, but these have only been short, including short stories. I was surprised to find that I’m not alone and that a lot of people now struggle to read anything of any length. I’m not quite sure of the reason for this – maybe it was because we were so much in survival mode during the pandemic and reading felt like a luxury many of us didn’t have. It became hard to concentrate.

So, I have written a short book. I’ve been working on it since February and it will be published at the start of December.

As with all parables, there is more to it than the surface story. I will leave it for readers to figure out.

It will be published as a physical book, an ebook and an audiobook.

(There will be no Halloween story this year, but you should be able to find a lot of them on this blog under October for the past ten years.)

The new book is dedicated to my brother and his partner.

Day 297 - Where is my God?

 

Apparently, I’m heckling God.

A Christian told me so. I had been unaware that my blogs were interrupting God's sermon or speech, but now I know. Perhaps I am lucky not to get thrown out of the audience? And beaten up down some alley?

The reaction from other believers towards my prayer strike has been mixed. A lot of them are very understanding and are kind towards me. That is much appreciated. But then there are others who are less than happy with what I’m doing (or, more accurately, with what I’m not doing). Reactions vary from, 'You should pray continually!' through to a downright antagonism, as if my ‘not praying’ is somehow so totally against the party line that I’m, in fact, the enemy. The believer who said I was heckling God went on to say that I have become God's enemy (which was news to me). Kinder people tell be to express my feelings to God but I see no reason to continually restate them to the Almighty. I'm not God's enemy, but that doesn't mean I have to like the things he does (and doesn't do).

I don't think, before this, that I had been even aware of the pressure to pray. But it is there, either through pressing circumstances, wars, pandemics, earthquakes or Popes and Archbishops telling everyone that they should pray. It’s like a kind of mental torture - 'Pray, damn you!'. My respect for those who choose not to has increased significantly (even if I did the same for my first 19 years).

And, of course, when there is ‘big trouble’ © in the world, the Popes, the Archbishops and the believers tell everyone to pray (and if that doesn't work, ‘pray more and pray harder’). I'm pretty sure it’s the only plan of most faith leaders.

We have just had a pandemic and some earthquakes and now we are straight into more war. When is God going to give us a break? Of course, no-one blames God for the latest war (surely he is innocent?). Even my calling for a ceasefire last week set some people off. Choose a side, are you a mod or are you a rocker?

'I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse.'

That's in the Bible, in the context of talking about the nation of Israel and there are actually people who put their entire prosperity (and the non-prosperity of others) down to that scripture. I've read some of their blogs and listened to their interviews. They genuinely believe they get bonus points with the Almighty if a country supports Israel. And if a country does not.... then Judgement and Wrath!

God would do that. He’s so obsessed.

They actually divide countries up into 'sheep' and 'goat' nations. You can probably guess who the goodies and who the baddies are. So, of course, the UK and the US must be sheep nations because they (at least vocally) support Israel. And all those goat nations just happen to be our political enemies. Russia, China, Iran. Funny how our enemies are always the goat nations isn't it? So much nationalism and political pride and religion all mixed together in one potent, intoxicating brew. I am no longer sure that the UK is a ‘sheep nation’ in any meaningful sense, apart from the fact that people like me are sheeple. I think we are probably a goat nation. Or maybe an ibex nation. Because we don't do the right thing and our Government doesn't look after its poor and vulnerable and we’re not even very good at looking after each other, are we?

Britain is a goat nation. Well, some of us happen to like (and even feel like) goats so don't feel as if I'm talking the country down.

It's one hell of a plan and solution... 'Pray'. The entire blueprint to a future vision, surely (a vision which our leaders seem to noticeably lack)? Society, and civilization, it seems to me, are threadbare and not very good at functioning in a crisis. Sneak in one night and unlock the secret archives at the very top of the faith institutions and it wouldn't surprise me if you found a golden filing cabinet with a top-secret file in it and a tiny piece of paper revealing their big plan and vision for humanity!  And scrawled in a spidery text by a nervous hand....

 

Top secret:

Plan A… Pray?

Plan B… Pray?

Plan C… Run away.

 

Our shepherds could surely do no more than make their plans for us?

But I wouldn't want to heckle the Almighty…

Baaaa… 

Day 290 - A call for a ceasefire

 

Well, I haven’t prayed for Israel, despite my wish that there would be peace there (and here and elsewhere). I’m not sure that violence is a terribly effective strategy for either side.

The Israeli war operation is actually called ‘Swords of Iron’ – and the irony is that despite the so-called convictions of many writers and journalists, many will still join their pen with the sword of one side or the other. So much for the pen being mightier than the sword, eh? All I’m saying at this point is that maybe there are other solutions than simply killing the enemy? At least prayer is non-violent, but shouldn’t both sides be prayed for? There should, at least, be a ceasefire. A blessing on both their houses. But who listens to moderate voices anymore?

My brother would sometimes boycott Israeli goods, similarly exasperated by the whole situation, I guess. We didn’t agree on Middle-Eastern politics. There was adversity on that issue. Another testy situation, allowed by a testy God. I’m not praying for it unless it escalates into World War III.

I had a dream about my brother last night.

When he died, I had expected my dreams (which are not usually very sweet anyway) to be quite tumultuous as my unconscious dealt with it all. What surprised me was how banal my dreams became. In fact, they were notably forgettable. If there were something really important that I needed to deal with in my waking life, it was not repeated in my dreams.

My dreams are almost always Kafkaesque. By which I mean that it is very rare for me to dream about anyone being friendly towards me. They tend to be full of people and things that want to harm me in some way. Often there are huge conspiracies, and a few recurring themes.

But as I say, in the immediate days after my brother died, my dreams became absolutely unremarkable.

And, there were no dreams of my brother. So last night's dream was unusual. And he was friendly with me. 

I will always remember a childhood dream with my brother in it and him being on my side in the dream against the monsters. It was memorable simply because so few of the characters in my dreams are benevolent.

It’s rare for someone to be nice to me in dreams or nightmares.

 

They say that God can speak through dreams, but if that is true, I wonder why so many of us have so many nightmares. It seems as if it is not just God and our subconscious which can speak through our nightmares, as so many can be so horrific. I have learned the trick of averting my ‘dream eyes’ when there is extreme gore in a nightmare and weirdly that works for me. Try it. But often there is an extreme body-horror far worse than the horror movies that I sometimes still watch.

 

‘A brother is born for adversity.’

 

This is in the Bible. Whether nightmare monsters or waking monsters. I always wanted Ad to feel I was on his side. I did not feel that we were born for adversity in terms of fighting each other (though sometimes we did), but that we were to fight greater adversities together. Whether this be the latest Government nastiness or other things. Of course, we were not able to fight the cancer together, though I tried to be on his side through it all, even when his language became affected by the aphasia which turned his talk to gobbledygook. It must have been so hard for him. The aphasia was not something any of us expected and was so unhelpful, causing huge confusion and misunderstandings. Language pretty much left him at the end. That must have been so hard.

How do you fight death together, knowing that death will win in the end? Fascinating as it is, it is still an enemy in my mind. It's real enough and hardly fair, is it? Worse still, who is on our side when we fight it? Not everyone. Four legged friends surely are… maybe? Love may be as powerful as death, but in many ways, death wins.

Worse still, all the believers who go around saying God has defeated death. Yes, but for whom? For himself. Great. He hasn't defeated death yet in any meaningful way for us. And no one here gets out alive. Go God.

 

It’s not the only thing God gets the praise for which he hasn't even done yet.

People tend to praise someone for something after an event. Oh, but not the Almighty, he wants the praise right now. And none of the blame. Not for death, or cancer, or wars… or anything.

It's a waking nightmare.

And just another reason for me to continue to give him the silent treatment.

That’s not war, that’s just a not-talking thing.

Still, maybe there should be a ceasefire all around.

The pen should be mightier than the sword (and not join with the sword).

Your voice matters.

Day 283 - Is prayer fair?

 

I wonder how fair prayer is.

If you think about it, it is a kind of popularity contest in some ways. If you are a leader of a country or a celebrity, then you are likely to get a lot of prayers. But if you are relatively unknown, then there is not going to be much prayer support is there? So a famous preacher, who is ill, is likely to get a lot more prayer than… say someone like my brother, who was not famous.

During the latter part of the brain-cancer, I tried to organise some prayer support. This was when I believed that prayer was a lot more efficacious than I do now. Ad was always very open to people praying for him. He wasn’t one of those people who found the whole idea offensive and a kind of secret invasion of privacy or human rights. However, he was also very honest in any feedback. “It’s not working,” he would often say.

Alongside looking for medical trials, I tried to organise a prayer campaign and got my brother on church prayer lists and a friend even kindly organised a Mass to be said for him. I even emailed the faith healers, but I wanted to spare Ad the worst of that because so many faith healers are unaccountable and their success record is not always as great as they claim it to be. Some of them are simply dodgy.

And, of course, before I stopped praying – I prayed for him.

If prayer is dependent on the number of prayers you get, then is it any wonder that our kings, queens, politicians, celebrities often thrive and live life to the full? But if you are relatively isolated, or if you do not know many believers, then who is going to pray for you? It isn’t fair if the efficacy of prayers is based on the number of people praying them. Hopefully, you would think that the Almighty might take this into account. But who knows?

Prayer is supposed to heal. We have some very exciting stories in faith circles about doctors saying things like: “We’ve never seen anything like it, the tumour just disappeared! We can’t explain it.”

However, in my brother’s case, the words said by the doctors were: “We’ve never seen anything like it, the tumour has grown back faster than we have ever seen!”

It was a kind of miracle in reverse. An elcarim.

And I am so sick of miracles in reverse.

My belief in prayer remains, I suppose. After all, I wouldn’t be on a prayer-strike if I did not believe that prayer, in some way or form, did not do things which we cannot always understand. However, if the flaky church signs are to be believed: ‘Seven days without prayer makes one weak.’ Then I really must be in a bad spiritual state mustn’t I? And I’m not the only one.

I think prayer is a good deed. I’m sure it is more complicated than that, but it is not the most enjoyable thing in the world is it?

On and on they go about how God does not need our prayers. So, why all the manipulations to pray then?

The gods do not need our worship, they have their nectar and ambrosia, so what is the problem?

Prayer is not fair.