Day 199 - About not reading the Bible

 

I really cannot tolerate much from the Bible at present and am not reading it at all. It is part of the strike, but also because I have no appetite for it. I can endure the most encouraging, sanitised bits presented before me, but even then, they seem largely useless to me.

My Bible, like that of many people, is simply gathering dust on a shelf. This supposed source of all truth lies neglected.

‘But it’s God’s love letter!’

Have you read it!?

Reading the Bible is one of those things you are ‘supposed’ to do after becoming a believer.

‘What do I do now?’

“Read the Bible. Go to church. Pray.’

‘Can I do anything else?’

‘Errr… you just focus on those things, and everything else will fall into place.’

‘But…’

‘Shhhh.’

I can read a few of the encouraging social media memes with Bible scriptures in them. Some of the quotes still sound hopeful to me. ‘And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age’. That kind of thing. But my brain is still full of the more unhelpful scriptures from the Bible. Rebukes, warnings and condemnations. And way too much about hell. It is only human to not be able to ignore these parts.

Maybe I’ll start reading it again if the prayer strike ends. But that only ends when past prayers get answered. And, at the moment, instead of anything approaching that happening, there is simply a lot of grief and difficult situations to tackle. Every day.

So, no brownie points for me for reading the Bible or praying. I’m not winning the spiritual holiness competition. Although I am still going to online church (or ‘the picket line’ as I call it). Maybe that should placate the ire of the Almighty. Or perhaps we just present a picture of God to everyone we meet and those of us who fear an angry God will find the evidence of him all around us. As the Bible says, ‘Seek and you shall find’.

I simply do not find the tone of the scriptures helpful at the moment. The Bible can sound authoritative – I mean, it is written in that way. The only other book which I have read which has a similar tone is the Quran. But that book has too little about love in it for my taste.

If the Bible is the map or manual for life which people say it is, why do believers argue about almost every direction given there? Also, it’s a very big ask to place all of your entire life under the discipline and authority of an ancient book which you have effectively learned after you learned to read. This goes for any book.

I can happily look at the book of nature and think about the Creator. But even reading that, there is evidence for a God who is not as benevolent as I would hope him to be. Nature can be red in tooth and claw.

And it’s okay for the Bible to tell everyone who reads it to repent, such things are allowed to be expressed. But am I to go around and tell everyone to repent too? No-one likes people who go around doing that. People have got their own consciences, some of them don’t need extra ones. Anyway, repentance is a journey.

Plus, what if you are in the process of repenting? The Bible’s advice – repent again? You can’t just broadcast that message to everyone – people are individuals and in different stages.

I do think that we present an image of the God we hold to be true. I had always hoped that he might be good, gentle and loving and the source of unconditional love. They say that this is the good news – that he really is all these things, as evidenced in the actions of Christ (maybe not so much in the words). But, if that is the case, why do we so rarely seem to experience this fabled love? And if we do not experience it – how on earth are we expected to share it with others? What is the point in telling people that they can live life in all its fullness if we are not doing so ourselves? But that’s the promise in the Bible – believe and you will have life in all its fullness. And if that doesn’t work out, what do you do then? Is it just user error if you do not? It’s not as if you can complain to anyone…

‘But you said ask and you shall receive, God. It seemed pretty clear.’

‘This is an angel here – we’re going to have to put you on hold again for a while. You’re number 234,323,221 in the complaints queue. Are you okay waiting? It’s sometimes slightly quicker if you message us online? The ‘answer prayers button ASAP’ button has been greyed out on your phone you say?

I’m not sure why, no. Have you tried clearing your cache?’

Day 192 - A memory

 

During my brother’s illness, I kept a personal record of the events, largely for personal therapy, but also to document incidents like a specialist doctor asking for thousands of pounds for a simple consultation. Or dubious medical trials which would have cost hundreds of thousands of pounds.

I have just re-read one of my last memories of Ad. On the whole, I don’t like to think of how he was in those final days, but this memory was not so bad. It was the last time I was alone with my brother. It was about a month before he died and we had gone down to see him at his rented house. He developed Wernicke’s aphasia at the end, which meant it became difficult to communicate with him. No-one told us that this might happen. When it did, it was only The Brain Tumour Charity website which explained any of it. The conversations, as remarked by one of Ad’s friends became increasingly ‘surreal’…. He thought he was making sense when he talked, but the words came out all mixed up.

 

November 19^th 2022

We drove and saw Ad and his girlfriend who is also dying of cancer. She is a writer too.

We shopped for some essentials and when we got there it was clear that Ad’s girlfriend had tidied and made everything as cosy as possible, in the face of the cold austerity and sheer pain of the cancer. She had even managed to get some more comfortable covers onto the hospital bed – the bed which my brother thinks is horrendous and unnecessary. I gave them their gifts which included a good writer’s book, a Celtic pen, a notepad and some personal care items. Ad got a good first aid pack (which he liked), a renewal of his website, a small torch, some quality underwear, some tobacco with papers and a lighter. And food essentials. And a message from us in a bottle which read, ‘We all love you’. Except, because of the aphasia I don’t think he will read it himself.

He was in a relatively good mood, significantly helped by some privately prescribed but legal liquid cannabis he had had to pay for – which had already proved to be very helpful. I’m all for that kind of palliative care. As much pain relief in whatever way possible as far as I’m concerned.

He spoke a lot about ‘crisps’ and I don’t think any of us knew what he was referring to, except we gathered that ‘crisps’ were a good thing.

He looks bigger now, because of the steroids, as he did when he was a boy. His hair shorter again. But still the fierce intelligence in the eyes. He has weeks, that’s all I know. He is half aware of some of it at times, but then at other times thinks he has longer, because he feels okay. But he cannot manage hills now. He can still walk a little.

We sat on a bench in a graveyard to watch the sunset and talked about nature and some other things. We looked down together across the valley where he lived, still beautiful even at this time of the year. The sunset was really quite peaceful until a neighbour decided to mess with some plants nearby at the point when we might have been alone. I wished the neighbour wasn’t there. Someone else waved at us from a distance. They walked all the way over to us and stared at me.

“I thought you were someone else,” said one of them, as if I had somehow deceived them and was to blame. They walked on.

The sun began to set and I tried to listen and speak with my brother. Some of the conversion seemed to make sense to him. Some of it made sense to me. In the end he raised his walking stick to the sun and asked God for some more years. I guess he has reached bargaining stage.

Afterwards we left the bench and the graveyard and met up with the others. Then it was as if there were a change, a shift somehow, and my brother said:

“Where is my brother, Nick? Where is she?”

I, startled, replied, “She sends her love.”

I don’t want to read more of these notes I have – I’m not sure there is much that is particularly helpful there. They document my feelings and how difficult so much of the search for medical trials was. I’m not sure there is anything especially helpful in them. It was just that this was one of the final times that I saw him, before hospital, and, in a way, I wanted to remember that again. They are both gone now, my brother and his girlfriend – both from cancer.

I cannot currently foresee a time when we will not so intensely miss them both.

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."