I say it because I’m with friends
and a couple of glasses of wine and laughter
have loosened my heart
and my tongue:
“Sometimes when a friend asks for prayer
I think, I can’t.
What if there’s no point in praying?
What if there’s no God?”
The smiles and nods
tell me I am not alone.
“But other times
I find my heart rises
to God and to love
with no regard for doctrine or doubt.
Yes, I can pray.”
(I wonder.
Would I have confessed
the first, the moments of uncertainty,
without also confessing the second,
the moments of faith?)
“And then I message back “Praying”
and feel victorious!”
The laughter lasts a while –
laughter of recognition and relief,
laughter full of unspoken stories,
of relationships with friends
and families and childhood churches
whose belief appears to be
single, unwavering,
that illusive benchmark I suspect
I may never again reach
(though in truth I never did;
I just pretended
– to myself above all).
Beneath the laughter
there is also pain,
misunderstanding, distance.
The pain of leaving
and the pain of holding on.
The pain of the inner struggle
to find and walk one’s own road
with love and courage,
the new road, now road,
but one that connects
at some crossroads miles past
with the old, well-worn.
Yes, continuity and discontinuity, both.
I say it because I’m with friends
and I need the healing balm
of laughter and confession mixed,
for this truth not to be so serious and heavy,
weighed down by years of silence and taboo.
I say it because I need to hear out loud
that I am not one.
My belief is not single.
Uncertainty and faith
dwell side by side in me.
(Perhaps less disparate than they at first appear,
different ways of approaching the same mystery,
two sides of the same dark coin?)
I say it because I need to balance
the complex victory of “Praying”
with the equally complex victory of “I can’t.”
Most of all I say it
to lay down any claim or need
to be champion of the faith
– that burden is not for me to bear –
and to take up instead the only burden
(at once heavier and miraculously light)
that is truly mine:
the burden of being myself.

2 Responses
Yes to this Rachel! All of it causes growth, sometimes in unexpected ways.
I love the way you put that, Sandy – it’s so true! Thanks for reading. <3