This has been a sad week for me. The passing of Buster B Jones was totally unexpected. All the other deaths in my recent past had been expected, but I fully expected Buster to outlive me.
I’ve been wondering a good bit about “why am I still here?” I’ve smoked cigarettes, mostly unfiltered, for 38 years and have always eaten whatever I wanted to. I love fried and Italian foods, and junk food, too. And from my mid-20′s to mid-30′s, I did far more than my share to keep several bars in business. If I had not met and married Vickie when I was 35, I doubt that I would have lasted much beyond that. Seriously.
So, even though I recently noted that my faith had waned and that I doubted that prayer works, I am wondering whether my mother’s prayers have worked to keep me alive.
Of course we all know that prayer does not always work. But, I think most of us believe it does at least some of the time. No doubt some of you believe prayer never works, and I’ve certainly done my share of standing with you in that belief.
I do know that there is so much that we do not understand. Quantum mechanics was formulated over 80 years ago, and to this day we do not know why it works, even though it is the best-tested theory of all time. One interpretation is that our consciousness has to figure into the results, so that we actually determine what happens at the quantum level. The great physicist John Archibald Wheeler even suggested that our consciousness is determining our past (a part of his “It From Bit” interpretation of QM).
Nor do we know if the three dimensions we see are all that there is … most versions of string theory, now more commonly called M-theory, call for at least 11 dimensions.
We don’t even know that the thing we call “time” actually exists. (I know this sounds bizarre, but it is true.)
So, maybe my mother’s prayers, for some reason, are working. Maybe my wife’s spirit still exists (and I generally believe it does, although there are times that I doubt it), and maybe her prayers are working. Maybe my late Dad’s prayers are working, too.
I do not know. But, I know I am grateful (1) to be alive and (2) to have the prayers of those who love me.
In a recent speech, President Obama offered the following quote from St. Augustine:
“Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.”
Sounds like good advice.
When I was looking for some help on dealing with being over-whelmed with work and home, one thing that peeked my interest in your blog was your Christian values. I am Catholic, and you think very much in a Catholic way. Don’t ask me to explain how that is, I don’t think I could as I am not very good with words.
God will is toward good, dispite our will getting in the way of the best for us. Certainly the prayers of those that love you, both living and deceased, are being offered for your benefit. Remember that all prayers are answered, just not in the way we expect.
Thank you, Dottie. Good comments.
By the way, my Mother’s name is Dottie.