Who I Pray For

Sometimes while doing what I call praying, after remembering those near and dear, living and deceased, as well as praying for a world of cruelty coming apart at the seams, and, of course, loading up on personal needs and desires, I just sit quietly for awhile, and passing images of people appear.

I.
Early one Saturday morning before dawn, I was leaving my building to go to work. Walking through the lobby, I saw through the glass front door two young men walking by, looking behind them and laughing----sneering, really. Nothing special, I thought, just refugees from the four o’clock bars. I see a bunch of them every Saturday morning.

Stepping out onto the sidewalk, I looked first to my right and then to my left. There I saw a woman in her early twenties, bent over the sidewalk, picking up clothes and other personal belongings that someone had thrown into the street from a window up above, and putting them into the backseat of her car that had the motor idling.

She looked up and saw me looking at her---for just an instant--- then we both averted our eyes. Fortunately for her discomfort and mine, my cab came quickly. But her eye contact, like an electrical charge, stayed with me the rest of the day.

Even though it was more than twenty years ago, I went through the same low point, coming “home” to find my belongings out on the street. I know the embarrassment, the humiliation, the anger, the sadness---all the while knowing the neighbors and strangers passing are watching the whole scene. I will never forget that moment and neither will she.

II.

Several years ago, a girl who had been a student in our grade school for the entire eight years and was in her freshman year in high school, suffered a heart seizure and died while jogging in her gym class: Just fourteen years old and gone. The pastor and I officiated at the wake at the funeral home, the ritual that begins the process of saying good bye to a loved one and, hopefully, helping with a bit of healing.

Standing up in front by the casket, the priest prayed and read from scripture, while I chanted psalms of the wisdom and mercy of God’s providence. The family, seated in the first row, huddled closely together, attempting to be strong for each other. At the end of the row, next to the family, sat a thin, fragile girl, also a freshman, who was the deceased’s best friend-----judging from the fact that the two were in nearly every photo in the collage at the funeral parlor, life-long friends. She was devastated and literally shaking. We made eye contact ever so briefly. She had the look of a frightened, trapped fawn or young rabbit, perhaps. The next day, at the funeral, she sat at the end of the first pew with the family, right next to the casket. Fourteen years old and your very best friend is taken from you.

I think of that young girl often, wondering if she’s managed to put her life back together and what she thinks of the wisdom of God.