PRAYER QUESTIONS [W, 7-26-23]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter:

 PRAYER QUESTIONS [W, 7-26-23]

 

God, when a man is old

can just naming someone

be counted as a prayer?

I mean, time is limited

now. And it’s hard to believe

that you count

the lines I intone

to be divinely sure

that the minimum

qualifications are met

So, if I just name them

one by one, Bob and Carol

and Ted and Alice,

you’ll surely

get the idea, I’m sure…

but, oh, what about those

fading folk whose names

I can’t remember?

That’s a bit of a problem

these days. Will it work

if I only see their faces,

as in a mirror, dimly

and say, Here’s a prayer

for the unknown sinner?

And what about the bastards—

well, I’m just being realistic--

I pray for not because I want to

but because you say I have to?

Shouldn’t a prayer

for someone I don’t like

count double?

You’d think that by the age

we are now, God,

you and me,

we’d have already

gotten this worked out…

 

John Robert McFarland