#59.4, Thursday, August 8, 2024

Historical Setting, 629 C.E. farm in the Vosges Mts.

         Ana asked for a prayer aloud for this stranger, Vizsla, who is grieving his mother’s passing even though my mind and my heart are all only on Ana at this time. She wants me to speak the prayer words aloud, so together she and I can pray this. I take her hand, we close our eyes and…

         I whisper to God, “Dear God, sometimes the prayers in our hearts are our deepest worries — what we care for most. I know you hear what is in our hearts. But if you were distant and different from us then we could just pray with words that sound right but don’t really touch deeply, so please dear God, listen also to my unspoken prayers when I speak words aloud.” (There is a sound at the door, and yet I continue to speak the prayer.  Now it is silent at the door, probably the intruder realized it was not something to interrupt. So, I continue the prayer aloud.) “And together, Ana and I ask for you to be with Hannah’s Vizsla, as he has to face this time of deepest grief. And help me to nurture the empathy for him that I know is felt by those who love him. Amen.”

         And here he is this awkward fellow Vizsla who just burst into the door while we were in prayer.  He was listening at the ending of the prayer, and now he thinks … whatever he thinks … he missed the part where I said it was Ana who told me to say it, so I was only speaking the part of the prayer about this strange misfit fellow in order to please Ana. And now he has thrown his arms around me, and is sobbing on my shoulder. Of course, I know God loves him and Hannah loves him. 

         Now, he says he was so moved that I took my empathetic plea to “my God.” And he is thanking me for caring. 

         What does he even mean, “my God?” Are these Avars not Christian? Even Arians who don’t follow the Creed, worship the one God of Abraham and Jesus.

         “Is your God different than my God?” I ask him.

         “If it is the religion that makes the God, then all our fighting against the Christians surely would require all of us who are Persians to have a different God,” Through his blubbering he adds, “But…”

(Continues Tuesday, August 13, 2024)