"Why bother"
and other honest prayers
This is for the saints whose prayers right now sound like “Why bother?” and “What difference will my voice make?” Let’s talk about that sinking feeling fluttering around our chests. Let’s talk about the anguish of not being able to make a difference. Let’s talk about being stuck in between a rock and a hard place with nowhere to go, because truthfully the rock isn’t just a rock- it’s a boulder, and the boulder doesn’t feel like it’s squeezing up next to me; I feel flattened underneath it. The hard place is the dirt, and my jaw can hardly move. And as I drink in dust with every inhale, the worst part is the boulder didn’t wind up on top of me because of my own arrogance or stupidity or even a freak accident. It was placed there on purpose.
A lot of what has transpired I can’t actually speak to right now. Shocker. That’s the boulder. And it’s doing what boulders tend to do. It weighs heavily. It silences. It crushes. And said boulder is inhibiting my ability to breathe on my own terms, crushing the airflow under bones. “Why bother gasping for air?” “Why bother mustering up strength to wiggle this monster sized rock?” But when I peer around, I notice I’m not the only one. Many of us were crushed in one fell swoop.
Why?
Why bother?
The only reason I can come up with right now, is that I never ever want anyone else to feel this way. As a minister, I never ever want to be responsible for someone feeling this way. And when those with power exert their rock-sized force overtop of perceived threats, pinning them down, leaving them temporarily unable to image God according to his own purposes, that is sin. Invisible insidious sin, because sin is culpable shalom-breaking. Sin is violence against the harmony that’s supposed to exist between creation and image bearers. And there is no harmony when the screaming inside of one’s chest has no escape. There is no shalom in rendering one another inaudible and invisible. Silencing people, rendering people stuck, is sinning against them, full stop.
The question then is where are you? If you’re not pinned down, breathless, hopeless, bolder-bludgeoned, and bruised, where are you? Are you your brother’s keeper, meandering amongst the minefield of boulders ensuring that everyone stays in line? Are you oblivious? distracted? busy? Are you helicoptering overtop? Maybe you’ve heard there’s a problem, but you’re not proximate enough to actually see the severity of the injuries. No one flying overtop the landscape would be able to notice the flailing life under the boulders. The only people who can actually see bruised yet wiggling feet and hands, and hear the whimpered wails are those amongst the rocks. The pilot wouldn’t have the ability to realize that this quarry is close to becoming a graveyard. A tomb. Who are you? Every once in a while, there is a healer with balm, but more and more frequently than not, the healers are quickly crushed too.
Where are you? You with power? You with influence? You with resources? You with visibility and a voice and agency?
You are not God’s gatekeepers.
You are not God’s guards.
And personally, I never want to find myself caught red-handed between God, and a boulder bludgeoning his beloved, attempting to pretend I didn’t know of or wasn’t in some way responsible for their suffering.
No one chooses to be pinned under a rock by their bother. Noone lays down willingly.
But Our God is in the business of rolling stones away, resurrecting, and emptying graves.
God restores each of us to siblinghood. To shalom. God frees the oppressed not only so they are no longer trapped beneath the sin wielded against them, but so that they are seen and heard by their siblings.
God never stops seeing and never stops hearing, but we sure do. And when we feel utterly unheard, it bears reminding that God isn’t hard of hearing. He loves to listen.
And when you have no words, your pulse is a perfectly acceptable prayer.
The silent surrendering of our humanity is enough in the presence of the God who loved humanity enough to become incarnate. God doesn’t just see and hear our words- God sees and hears the fullness of our humanity.
He hears every heartbeat.
The shutting of our eyelids.
The sound of our palms clasping.
The rubbing of our fingers.
The wiping of tears from faces.
The breath in our lungs.
Keep wiggling your fingers and toes as a defiant declaration of your humanity, and proof of the life that dwells within you. Keep daydreaming about hope, freedom, shalom, and God-with-us. Keep your heart set on the things of God.
Rest when you need to, but don’t lose hope.
Faith declares resurrection gets the last word.
—Liz