Prayer, Politics, & Doubt
Garvey, John
lion people), rural housing, housing for the elderly and dis- bridges, community development, and a broad range of social abled, and most of the funds available to maintain existing ...
...it is heresy, because truth is not unaware before, and that will give Islamic and Druse compatriots less by something we can possess...
...more than reinforcing a false self, if it that we were all ultimately doomed to But what would it mean really to be- means facing the unknown with an image total extinction, it would seem, like a very lieve in the judgment of Christ and the of the unknown we want to have, and good reason to me...
...But it is imeveryone with whom I dealt were truly all, the words of prayer are extremely portant to allow those beliefs to become destined to a life infinitely longer than the important...
...We find it tian sociologist we've been expecting which Moses encountered than it is like easy to see that contradiction...
...Most of us, practically speaking, looking disguises, is the most destruc- tions - for example, opposition to capilive out this observation...
...charge brought by conservative Chrisit really were true...
...If a city like Portland did want to make up for lost federal NANCY AMIDEI housing funds, it would be hard-pressed to do so when money (Nancy Amidei frequently reports on poverty, hunger, and for sewage treatment, police and fire protection, roads and human services issues in these pages...
...phrases Ruskin: "We generally believe cloud -which stands before the unknow- It is also not natural for us to believe in in immortality so as to avoid preparing able God in prayer and is revealed in all the resurrection of the body or the second for death, and disbelieve in it so as to its neediness...
...Frequently their importance is prayer for us, to pay the fullest possible life of any star, and knew that I had a not that they come from the heart but that attention to them and allow them to transmajor responsibility for that life, I would they instruct it...
...Granting that what I want to be p sage...
...This is every day a new fervor will appear, then on identified...
...We can be grateful for it, and There are elements of this familial and gratitude should make us generous rather D O WE BELIEVE, really, what we ethnic attachment to religion which are than possessive...
...This is where the politavoid preparing for a future life" (A Bul- fills up the emptiness by colonizing it ical importance of prayer comes in, begakov Anthology, London, SPCK, with our desires, dressed up in noble- cause our reasons for taking certain posi1976...
...The difference But in less dramatic ways we live that belief as something which is handed on to is that God lights the fire in one case, andcontradiction too, and make the more Commonweal: 102 obvious and deadly contradictions possi- this vague bundle of desire, dissatisfac- forgive does not only come from where ble by our own half-belief...
...At the spiritual tance...
...That is much more mysterious, profess Him...
...that we are forgiven to the degree that we The father who felt anguish over his I have such wonderful resolves, lots of son's illness and asked Christ to cure him good intentions...
...We can hope you new strength...
...We see vasive, and strange, We pray the creed munity from which we have received the the division between genuine and corevery Sunday and say that we look for the language of belief would be wrong...
...It is too easy for us to see the fire lit under heretics...
...You will under- genuine belief than by this use of creed- to serve truth, by looking for it humbly, stand then that prayer is educa- as-party and the acceptance of religion as more aware of our darkness than the tion...
...And so it isn't more hollow actual thing I am at this as a child that I believe in Christ and moment...
...That is very there is an important and revealing pastempting...
...If the president and Congress were to Farmer's Home Administration, and severely limit the availa- adopt a minimum corporate tax, of the sort in the Housebility of mortgage assistance...
...matter of state, to regard the honor we were an imminent possibility of his re- Our honest doubts and our realization pay to God's image as less important than turn, a real flash from horizon to horizon of emptiness matter more, spiritually, the international policy of any regime, is for which I should, from moment to mo- than what some would regard as firm idolatry...
...To make that less important than a watch" - or if I really thought that there level it is worthless...
...meeting one illusion with another it can every other human being is made in If I really took the words of Jesus to heart feel wonderful and can reinforce all sorts God's image, and has an eternal impor- "What I say to you, I say to all: of positive emotions...
...will always feel, from the depths and and retirement plans and more about the Though prayer is much more than words, without a shadow of doubt, that we will Lazarus outside my gate...
...lion people), rural housing, housing for the elderly and dis- bridges, community development, and a broad range of social abled, and most of the funds available to maintain existing services are also being cut...
...iting and distorting...
...This is true as or could possibly own...
...claim to believe...
...We believe just That's all right, as far as it goes, but it is tians against people who oppose nuclear enough to move away from one aspect of essential to understand that we stand be- war is that the opponents of mass murder reality, and hedge our bets enough to fore an unknowable God as people who believe death to be the greatest of all avoid the other...
...The form of religion which coming of Christ...
...The Maronite Chris- not only unkind of us, even potentially a new thought of which you were tians in Lebanon are divided from their deadly...
...They must, however, be turned in When I ask if we really believe what My relations with others would change...
...If, in one of the casualties in the president's FY 1987 budget...
...In an essay tion, emptiness, and desire pulling in all we are naturally...
...and mean it - that he or she believes in The question which ought to strike us When loyalty to those who have the resurrection of the body and the life of more than it does is whether we honestly handed on belief is considered more im- the age to come, that Christ's death was mean this as a declaration of belief, or portant than the belief itself, when the for all...
...dent's budget ($9 billion just from programs serving poor For the moment, however, Isaiah is being stood on his head: people...
...act differently...
...On the other, this does not seem to whether it is not rather a sort of flag we belief is not seen as something which remove or transform the thirst for retribuwave periodically to indicate what party, calls us to transformation but rather as a tion, or lead to compassion for the among all the religions of the world, we totem of the tribe to which we belong, enemy, even though this is an essential might be identified with in case the Mar- religion is less like the burning bush part of the teaching of Christ...
...All fire looks alike to Of several minds: John Garvey { some people, and it is easy for those who have no feeling for religion to refuse to make any distinction between the belief which transforms and the belief which PRAYER, POLITICS, & DOUBT murders...
...To pray evils...
...I think that for facing it with a picture of ourselves against killing is not that death is the most of my life this has meant a partisan which is appealing...
...Our belief is tive...
...this is a budget for beating plowshares into swords...
...Most addition, they were to put an end to the spending and contractfederal grant programs aiding cities would be eliminated or cut ing abuses now tolerated in the Pentagon's budget, that would severely, as would funds for urban mass transit...
...my 'hosannah' has passed unformed, difficult to see, and unedify_= through a great crucible of doubt.ing than any of my intentions...
...The Christian case life of the age to come...
...The light isn't something we own From "Thoughts and Teachings gional or ethnic loyalty...
...The Pentagon would gain $16 billion...
...IF WE BELIEVE WHAT WE PROFESS Religion can be God working among us...
...Overall, free up $20 billion - enough to do something about, among non-defense programs would lose $28 billion in the presi- other things, the crisis in affordable housing...
...But rupted belief, and mourn it...
...That should be part of our serious clue to my being, rather than a prayer...
...When prayer means worst of all possible evils, but rather that rather than a personal acknowledgment...
...But it is JOHN GARVEY 28 February 1986: 103...
...in a most ih portant called "Two Cities," the Orthodox directions which constitutes whatever it sense it goes entirely against our natural theologian Sergius Bulgakov para- is that I can truly call myself, and it is this inclination...
...That may be true of secular oppoenough within the small frame we know from "where we are" can involve little nents of nuclear war, and if I believed best...
...If I thought that and sometimes does not involve words at rise, that Christ is coming...
...contain...
...It seems to work well really do not know who we are...
...This isn't only a, good and enriching...
...In one of Dostoevski's notebooks clue to what I want to be...
...However we be- It is relatively easy to see how this question of hypocrisy versus true come believers, it has to do with a hand- applies to the most hideous political conbelief, but something more subtle, per- ing on, and to be ungrateful to the com- flicts, in Lebanon and in Ireland...
...belief...
...lands at last...
...a heritage, a loyalty very close to re- light...
...passed version of tax reform, that one item alone would generMeanwhile, Portland is only one city where affordable ate about $40 billion - more than enough to forestall any new housing is in short supply, and where housing assistance is but cuts in housing and every other domestic program...
...and his form so large a part of my conscious life answer was, "I believe - but help my that I could wind up thinking they offer a unbelief...
...A relatively frequent unwillingness to behave completely as if wardly, candidly, right from the heart...
...In addition, the president hopes to end the It needn't be that way...
...we in the other...
...My mistake is that they was asked, "Do you believe...
...On the one judgment of Christ at his coming again in that community of belief can also be lim- hand, the average Christian will say - glory, and for life in the age to come...
...ment, be ready, I would live differently...
...I the direction which prayer (beginning we say we believe, I don't mean that we would worry less about accumulation with the prayer Jesus gave us) indicates...
...He refers to the chapter "Rebelhas something - however little to do lion" in The Brothers Karamazov: "The with what I am, it is in fact much less atheistic position has never been stated important than the less consoling, much in Europe with such force...
...The prayer which tells us form us, despite our very human doubts...
...housing stock...
...or it can be the weapon we use against others by stressing the difference between ourselves, who possess the truth, "If your prayers are truly sincere, us from outside, with which we are from and all those others who do not...
...tal punishment or to nuclear weapons - divided between appreciation for the There are all sorts of preacherly exhor- must in some essential ways differ from story of Christ and a hope that it will be tations to pray from where you are, to those taken by people whose outlook is true, on the one hand, and on the other an express your own needs straightfor- totally secular...
...where we enof the Elder Zosima" in well of the divided Christians of North- counter it, it is a gift which we cannot The Brothers Karamazov ern Ireland...
Vol. 113 • February 1986 • No. 4
