Easter Prayer

This is what I looked like in my Easter hat today. I'm going to try to make it double as a Derby hat.

It's a gorgeous day, thunderstorms promised later. Do we have God to thank for what my mom calls "crisis" weather, or "just" Mother Nature? Whoever is responsible, I don't blame them, because we humans have been arrogant and greedy. Jesus still loves us, though. Right???

I am praying to the Higher Power of my understanding today, because it seems like I'm not in charge of the world, which is too bad, because I can think of at least a few dozen things I would change if I could. I can't, so I have to trust. Why do I have to trust? Because if I don't I'll go nuts. I'm already nuts, the reader will argue. Point well taken.

I am not simply praying for a whole list of things to be or to turn out the way I want them to. Prayers of petition are not fashionable; apparently some study has shown that sick people who are prayed for don't recover any better than people who are not (never mind that another study showed the opposite). Maybe I'm not, at this exact moment, praying at all, I'm just saying I am. Not that I'm the sort of person who doesn't pray, because I'm not. It's just questionable to be talking to an audience saying "I'm praying this, I'm praying that." I am guessing God might find this a bit indirect.

It's not that I'm embarrassed about my faith. Since I was raised an atheist and exposed to the diatribes of some of the most fervent atheists imaginable (such as students at the U. of Chicago Divinity School), my personal discovery of God is something I can't be easily talked out of; whatever your arguments are, I've heard them.

If you call yourself a believer, I don't think that's enough to justify anti-social behavior. A personal relationship with God is fine, but while we all have the vertical in our lives, there is also the horizontal--our relations with our fellow humans. I think anyone can go off to a closet to pray and come out and say "God told me to do this." I've been nuts enough to know you can say God told you but that doesn't mean God did. That may sound cynical but I think it's rational.

It's time for another vacation from blogging. Enjoy.

---Harriet.