Me and Religion IV: More about prayers

     This young man had very recently been awarded a Bachelor of Divinity degree and in just a few days, was to enter the ministry at a branch of the same protestant church he had grown up with. He had always been comfortable with his faith and now felt competent to minister to the congregation before which he would soon appear. 

     There was one little problem, though. Since childhood he'd been kind of a "Freedom Nut".  He felt that just as our muscles need exercise to thrive, so do our freedoms. One freedom which he thought was sorely lacking in exercise at that time (early 70s) was the right to be naked in public. Yes, even then "clothing optional" swimming venues as well as a wide variety of private gatherings of the nude were quite common and, to my knowledge, never "raided". But the kind of public nudity he had in mind involved people going about their daily routines, sometimes clothed, sometimes not, but never prompting a laugh or a pointed finger,(though perhaps an admiring smile might occasionally be seen.)

     Our society was far from such a place, then as now.  He had come to the conclusion that we'd not be truly free until we could be naked anywhere. Anytime. He was seriously considering becoming a naked activist. He'd been praying for guidance for some weeks without anything that he might have considered an answer being received. Time was growing short: In a few days he would be ordained and once he had committed himself to that extent, he would have to stick to it and being a naked activist part-time was not likely to be ok with the church hierarchy. So his prayer simply asked which calling he should follow. "And if you really want me to be a minister, give me some kind of sign", he prayed the night before his scheduled ordination. "Your silence will be my sign to abandon the ministry in favor of naked activism".

     In the state of Hawai'i, on the island of O'ahu in a big house in the town of Kane'ohe, resided two or three dozen middle-twenties-to-middle-thirties missionaries of The Lord's Children (TLC) (not their real name) Their organization is on the Capitol Island of the state because more ethnicities are present in Hawai'i than anywhere else in the world and all of those ethnicities are represented on O'ahu. Making it possible to practice the missionary pitch in many languages to real people, nearly all of it taking place in a single city; Honolulu. Once trained, they'll go do missionary work in a country where the language they've been practicing is spoken. While in training they stay at an assigned TLC house and spend most days at one or another of the most popular tourist destinations on O'ahu, offering TLC literature to visitors in their home language, along with a few small-talk phrases and plenty of smiles.

     None of those in training were actually taught the language(s) they spoke. Only phrases needed to interrupt, greet, offer the pamphlet, wish them well and bid them goodbye were taught. The encounter with the "target", properly conducted, will include all  five steps and consume less than ten seconds, and most of the thousands of contacts accomplished are done so quite quickly and correctly. Rarely, but it seems inevitably, a trainee will mistakenly use the wrong phrase in the wrong place or a target will try to start a conversation, not realizing that the trainee doesn't know enough of the language to order soup. Very rarely a simple misunderstanding has lead to an "incident" that gets the attention of police.

     Such an incident was underway the first time I visited TLC's Kane'ohe house. The house manager was on the phone with the attorney who was retained by TLC. According to him,a trainee had offended a retired Samurai warrior and his 70-year-old wife by mangling a phrase meant to wish them "top of the morning", but sounded to them like "I'd like to be on top of you in the morning". He'd been in jail all day, charged with lude conduct and the bail was too much to consider. so far, the plaintiffs were insisting on prosecuting to the fullest extent of the law. There were about a dozen of us in a round-robin discussion, when the house chairman came in and immediately asked us to give him our attention. Those in the further reaches of the house moved into the big room. "Our efforts to secure the release of trainee Will Harvey have proceeded since before nine this morning and are still underway. But we are no closer to our goal than we were at the start. We need an unfair advantage! We need a prayer with "Multiplied Effect!". At his direction we formed a circle, joined hands and counted ourselves. There were 54 of us. "Let us pray" he said.

                            end of Me and Religion IV

Me and Religion III

     Prayer. A kind of one-way wireless which, supposedly allows members of a congregation (or individuals on their own) to send personal messages to their choice of Godhead(s). Often, the message may simply extol the wonderous perfection of god, but probably most often it's a plea for sorely-needed help with a problem. So far as I know, no one has ever received any spoken  or written message in return but many, including myself, can claim that a timely change in circumstances,(post-prayer) which brought and end to the problem, amounted to a silent answer to prayers. And hey, if God did choose to give a spoken answer to our prayer, it could just be to tell us that He  would not grant our request.
     My fascination with the religious has allowed me to experience a wide variety of congregants and individuals in prayer. Some of the things I witnessed were, I think, remarkable: A minister, in church, leads the 800 of us present, in a prayer to spare the life of a highly-regarded parishioner who'd been mowed down in a cross-walk by a hit-and-run driver. I'm sure that many among us listened and followed the prayer, fervently if quietly, adding their  personal affirmation. He was loved. He was always there for the church and for any who might need his help. One might have thought that God, hearing that man's name in a prayer, would instantly order the Grim Reaper off the case.
     A foolish young man who thought he could escape with  his children, from  a boring suburb in western America to a new life in some rain-forest on some secluded pacific isle. (He said,"It seemed like a pretty good idea at the time")
Island one: Weather; hot and humid. Reception; xenophobic. Income oppertunities; open to locals only. Rain-forest prospects; dismal. And that was just the first ten days. A couple of nights later, they sat beside a road that led to a place where they'd been told they could camp for more than a few days. They were dog-tired.  For most of the last two days they had walked, carrying everything they owned. (many drivers responded to their thumbs-up entreaties with their horns, but no one stopped) They were hungry. Between them, in the past two days they had eaten only six prickley pear leaves and some  unidentified fruit that was unripe and unappetizing. It wouldn't be going too far to say that they were demoralised, since they had almost completely lost hope. Someone
said, "What if we said a prayer?" The four of them joined hands in a circle and asked for help.

                                     end of Me and Religion III