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.

Day 276 - Digital legacies

 

Managing my brother’s online presence and accounts has not been the easiest thing. Not everyone thinks of their digital legacy and my brother was one of them. He was not especially privacy conscious – being forgetful of passwords to the extent that I found he had even kept his bank card pin numbers in his wallet.

Many of the accounts I simply closed down rather than informing the website companies that he was no longer living. As soon as I had his Google account and email passwords (the main ones in my brother’s case), I was able to access most of the social media and online accounts. The Tell Us Once service had largely done its job in informing most of the Government departments that he’d died. But I always knew that Ad was much more than just his National Insurance or Government Gateway number. I’m not sure that the Government departments did.

He wasn’t hugely into his tech, unlike me, and resisted any urges to buy crypto or have lots of online accounts. He had those he needed for his work and a few for listening to music or watching things he was interested in.

The email account password was perhaps the most useful thing and the thing I would recommend for people to store and share with loved ones (along, I suppose with your master password and maybe Google account password). I still check the Outlook email and unlike with his redirected post, he will still get emails every day. A lot of them are junk or scam emails from people who really do not care if you and I are alive or dead.

I also manage his website, as I did while he was still alive. He would give me exact instructions of how he wanted everything set up – which images went where and what text to put in. I did all this out of love, wanting to support him. When I suggested I design a logo for him he was apologetic in refusing me – telling me that he really didn’t want to be like every other artist. That idea was scrapped.

I didn’t go around digging into his browsing history after he died. If I had wanted to, I could have seen his whole online life on Chrome, but I thought it best to delete all the searches. I’m pretty sure he never did anything particularly illegal or dubious.

Mostly he would leave scraps of canvas around with written ideas and phrases to go with his art. I already knew he could write, although he had problems with some of his punctuation. So, he would incorporate the writing into his art and I think this worked. He also wrote some poetry and simple phrases which he found interesting. He was a man who followed his interests deeply.

When I was a boy I had similar interests to him, I guess because I looked up to him, and he would always call me a copycat for being interested in reptiles and amphibians too. But because we shared so many of the same interests, it was fun to go on adventures and search for animals. He was interested in computer games as a child, but I remember I was the one who was more interested in that. I once wrote a book of reviews of the games I liked and even swapped much of my coin collection with my brother… in exchange for computer games. He was always the wiser one.

I often think of digital legacy now. All the emails and messages which come through every day and which, to an extent will continue after we die. They just carry on as normal, leaving a red dot telling you that they need to be dealt with immediately (known to advertisers as one of the most effective hooks… and to consumers as ‘the tyranny of the red dot’). Most of them are not particularly important. I check my mobile as much as anyone though, so I’m not going to start going on about screen time. I’m just saying that when you die, all that doesn’t stop, it’s just that click-throughs and replies tend to decrease somewhat.

The website is remaining. I intend to continue to promote my brothers work, if I can. Some of us creatives put some hope in posthumous success, if we have not been as successful as we would have liked in our lifetimes. But it often does not happen. We have to live with that fact. We have our own lives to get on with, but I will try not to neglect my brother’s art.

Take care of your digital legacy.

Day 269 - Promises

 

It feels to me as if God’s promise of comfort to those who grieve may as well be a promise of discomfort. Goodness knows he seems to allow more discomforting things than comforting ones.

 

As Tracy Chapman sang:

If not now, then when?
If not today, then
Why make your promises?
A love declared for days to come
Is as good as none.

 

There isn’t that much more to be said. I am back at work, after the summer break. I am increasingly having to care for my mum who has Parkinsons Disease and who is still grieving as much as I am.

I am still not praying. As I say, I envision these prayer strike blogs to continue to 25^th December – the day my brother died. After that I will stop writing about the topic unless something significant happens. Writing a weekly blog is not always easy and often I simply do not have the time. However, I will carry on until Christmas and then after that will go into other topics as well. Perhaps God will breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that the end is in sight and he doesn’t have to tolerate any expression of grief from me?

I had wondered if I would be an atheist by the end of the year when I first started writing these blogs. As it happens, and possibly due to a minor miracle, I have decided not to do that. Not necessarily because Christ has answered my prayers – in fact despite the fact that Christ has not answered my prayers. ‘The Believer Who Would Not Pray’ – it is probably a good title for a book. I’m not saying that after Christmas I am going to start to pray again. In fact, if there is no answered prayer then I have no intention of doing so. However, I will stop being so vocal about it. I will stop trumpeting the fact that I am not praying.

I have not particularly planned beyond that. If there is any miracle or answered prayer then even if it happens next year, I will let you know about it and I will let you know if I start praying again beyond the sporadic, brief and rare prayers that I have made this year (I have, I think, spoken to God three times in ten months. Which he is lucky to have had.)

I wish I could report that God has comforted me since the death of my brother. I have not gone out of my way to discomfort myself, although I have had to be aware of the fact that I may be punishing myself for the whole thing. However, the ways for God to comfort me have been wide open and yet so few opportunities have been taken by the Almighty. So, I am remaining a believer despite God’s broken-promises.

I suppose a promise is not necessarily broken if it is delayed. But for how long does it have to be delayed before it becomes so utterly meaningless? A promise is a promise and should not be conditional on the faith or doubt of the one to whom it is made. It either happens or it does not, doesn’t it?

And so far, it hasn’t.

Day 262 - AI wants me to pray

 

Here follows a short dialogue I had with a generative AI tool (Google Bard), including the prompts I wrote…

Should a Christian ever stop praying?

No, a Christian should never stop praying. Prayer is a vital part of the Christian faith. It is how we communicate with God, express our love and gratitude to Him, and ask for His guidance and help.

The Bible teaches us that we should pray constantly. This means that we should always be open to talking to God, no matter what we are doing or where we are. We can pray silently or aloud, in our hearts or out loud. There is no right or wrong way to pray.

Prayer can be a difficult thing to do, especially when we are going through tough times. But it is important to remember that God is always with us and He wants to hear from us. When we pray, we are not just talking to ourselves. We are talking to the God of the universe, who loves us more than we can imagine.

So, no, a Christian should never stop praying. It is a powerful tool that we can use to make a difference in the world.

Do you pray?

I do not pray in the traditional sense. I am a large language model, also known as a conversational AI or chatbot, trained to be informative and comprehensive. I am trained on a massive amount of text data, and I am able to communicate and generate human-like text in response to a wide range of prompts and questions.

I do not have a personal relationship with God, so I do not pray in the same way that a Christian or other religious person might. However, I can understand the importance of prayer to many people, and I can generate prayers based on the user's input. For example, I can generate a prayer for a specific religious text, such as the Bible or the Quran, or I can generate a prayer for a specific occasion, such as a wedding or a funeral.

Write me a prayer from someone who is extremely angry and disappointed with God. How might such a person pray to God? Write a useful prayer.

Sure, here is a prayer from someone who is extremely angry and disappointed with God:

‘Dear God,

I am so angry with you. I am disappointed in you. I feel like you have abandoned me.

I have prayed to you for so long, and I have never felt like you heard me. I have asked for your help, and you have not answered.

I have seen so much pain and suffering in the world, and I don't understand why you allow it. I don't understand why you don't do more to help people.

I am so angry, God. I am so disappointed.

But I am also here to say that I still love you. I still believe in you.

I know that you are a good God, and that you have a good plan for the world. I just don't understand it right now.

I am asking you to help me to understand. I am asking you to help me to forgive you. I am asking you to help me to find peace.

I know that I am not the only one who is angry and disappointed with you. There are so many people who are hurting, and who don't understand why you allow it.

I am praying for them too, God. I am praying that you will help them to find peace and hope.

I know that you are a loving God, and that you want the best for us. I am trusting you, even though it is hard.

In Jesus' name, amen.’

This is just a sample prayer, and you can customize it to fit your own feelings and experiences.

I’m too angry with God to pray that… If you don't pray, you are not practicing what you preach are you? What do we call someone who does not practice what they preach?

Yes, if you don't pray, you are not practicing what you preach. So, if you are telling people that they should pray, but you are not praying yourself, then you are being hypocritical.

The word you are looking for is ‘hypocrite’. A hypocrite is someone who pretends to be something they are not. In this case, a hypocrite would be someone who tells people that they should pray, but they themselves do not pray.

Here are some other examples of hypocrisy:

A politician who promises to fight corruption, but then gets caught taking bribes.

A religious leader who preaches about the importance of love and compassion, but then treats people with cruelty...

At this point I shut down Google Bard as it seemed to have zero self-awareness. I do not know if I will ever pray the prayer it wrote.

Day 255 - Brief, unresolved talks with God

 

“God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players [i.e. everybody], to being involved in an obscure and complex variant of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.”

(From ‘Good Omens’)

 

I may have said another prayer.

Despite thinking about how unfair God seems on the whole (I mean, why create so many literal demons and then even give them the ability to read)?

I did pray though. A few months back, rather than have it out with the Almighty I prayed and simply stated that I am extremely angry with him. I didn’t really want to fight. And so, my latest brief prayer was:

“God, I am very disappointed with you.”

Which, I thought, at least was honest.

I think of the usual cliches: “God will never disappoint you.”

Well, there’s another lie right there.

Cliché monger: “Even if you feel disappointed, it won’t be God’s fault.”

Getting a little more honest about wanting to keep the image of God as pristine as a polished golden apple.

Meme: “God always keeps his promises.”

But at what point in time can a promise be said to be… unkept?

Again and again and again I wonder what the point of sharing the gospel is if we are telling people that they can live their life to the full, but are not doing so ourselves. They say that life is found in the sharing of the gospel itself, but I don’t think that is true. So why promise a freedom rarely felt? We’ve got to practice what we preach. Many believers assert that they really are living life to the full and I’m not sure I have the right to doubt what they say. I can never know. I just know that I am not. That isn’t the only reason for the disappointment. I’m now disappointed in God’s reaction to my telling him that I am disappointed with him! Hence I’m blogging about it.

As the atheists darkly say.

“It’s almost as if he’s not there, isn’t it?”

Unless it really is a test.

Test or not, it is deeply disappointing. But I did say another prayer and initiated a brief dialogue once again. I have no doubt that this does not make me the better person. But olive branches from the Almighty always seem few and far between and I think it better to offer one of my own.

There have been no further deeply negative life events since Ad and his partner died. But life has not been calm and there have been many troubles. Most significantly, there have been no particularly notable positive life events. Well, you could say that I am not being grateful and counting my blessings enough, and perhaps there is a little truth in that, but I must have missed the bit where prayers finally got answered. Maybe I’m not listening hard enough. But a human being naturally listens to Heaven via their circumstances.

So, it seems to me that there is only one socially acceptable way for a believer (or, incidentally, a non-believer) to grieve, and I can assure you that this is not it. Because it is not what people want to hear. If the atheists are right then it would explain a lot of things.

But I am not convinced that they are living life to the full either.

I should just lie for the sake of the great cause. I should just say that God is great and he is showering me with love and blessings and I’m living life to the full and all the demons are running away at the very sound of my voice.

But if I said that, I would be lying for a cause which, if it is true, should be able to function just dandy without resorting to dishonesty.

 

Day 248 - Trouble with the Boss

 

I have never really had trouble viewing God as a boss. It has always been quite a helpful analogy to me, especially because my earthly career has been a little… disappointing so far.


I’ve sometimes viewed God as an editor – that has been helpful. To give him a little credit (before I go into the poor working conditions), I have to make it quite clear that as a Boss, I have not really felt that God is very insistent on results. By which I mean that I have rarely felt that a condition of employment is based on my performance – especially in terms of winning souls. Which is just as well, because I can assure you that I’m not very effective at winning souls. Not to my knowledge.

There are scary scriptures like: “No one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Yes, thanks for that… boss, Lord, whatever.

Because, of course, mental health problems often leave you feeling you are not entirely… fit.

Work conditions are important. Even in matters of faith. If your ‘boss’ is not treating you well, what are your options?

Well, the options are pretty clear:




1.       Keep your head down, work even harder in the hope of finally pleasing your employer
2.       Pack in the job and get one with a half-decent boss – no-one needs unnecessary trouble
3.       Assert your complaints in a meeting and demand adequate working conditions
4.       Strike
5.       Take it all out on the other employees

Maybe you can think of some other options. But I’ve opted for options 3 and 4. Option 2 is tempting. I’m trying to resist option 5. Option 1 is just madness.

Now, a good boss would be willing to listen in the event of an employee complaint and also in the event of a strike. There would be procedures in place within the… business. A particularly bad employer would simply sack the disgruntled employee and hire someone else, depending on their management style.

But in Christianity there is no union. Everyone wants to please their commanding officer – hey, that’s even a scripture. We’re like soldiers having to fight in a war we know so little about. Everyone wants to please the boss. Me too in all honesty. But not at any price.

It does suggest that the boss can be pleased. Something which is difficult to know when he is in his office, relatively isolated from the troubles and pains of those outside (especially when he has decked out his office to make it VERY comfortable).

And the only way of knocking on the door? Prayer. And even then, it is more like lifting up a telephone for a one-sided conversation and getting put on hold through a myriad of angels delegated with whatever tasks they have been assigned. Bless them.

Well, they say that there are only two spiritual workplaces anyway. That may be a bit simplistic, but it is memorable. The Kingdom of darkness and the Kingdom of light. Two businesses. Great.

And the employees can make a decision to move from one to the other at will, depending on how content or discontent they are with present conditions.

However, the question remains – how will my heavenly Boss deal with my strike? Will he simply tolerate it? Will he ignore it? Will he concede to my demands or simply send me off for further disciplinary procedures?

Inquiring minds need to know.

Because so far – he simply appears to be largely ignoring the prayer strike. Although not completely. Maybe I will go away and shut up?

Or maybe I’m going to kick up a (relatively) holy fuss about all this for as long as I physically can…