How to Tense Verbs into Prayer
The news was gutting, and I was months late to learning it. She and I hadn’t corresponded for a while, which was not altogether unusual. We were in the “maybe once-a-year, once-every-two-years” mode. We were classmates long ago, and neither of us would have named each other on a list of life friends. Affectionate acquaintances, sure. We didn’t exchange Christmas cards.
We didn’t share much in common except that, for a time, our life paths crossed in school, we were both writers, and we shared a love for the original languages of the Bible (her: biblical Hebrew; me: biblical Greek). She likely kept her Hebrew more active that I have kept my Greek, and I suspect so because she was ordained a priest and a rector of a church, regularly preaching sermons.
She approached her writing with gusto and pluck, not the sluggish caution and reluctant shyness to which I’m prone. She was generous to me in ways that I will not forget. She hosted a Zoom event for my Bonhoeffer book, took a screenshot of us all smiling and holding the book up together — which felt a little silly to me at the time but now I see as a real Jedi move - and posted it to her photo social media account.
You may be noticing how I’m tensing these verbs. I’m noticing how I’m tensing as I write them. But today I’m taking a cue from Elizabeth Felicetti to remember to turn them - indeed, to turn all that threatens, robs, and terrifies, humbles, and irritates - into prayer.
Over a year ago, she had asked if I might consider endorsing a forthcoming book she was co-authoring with another priest, Irreverent Prayers: Talking to God When You’re Seriously Sick. I was happy to do so after reading the PDF galley copy. The “irreverence” of the prayers struck me as utterly holy and true, deeply biblical, leaning hard on the Hebraic humanity and earthiness and not the Greek parsing and tendencies toward disembodiment and conceptual abstractions. It was an easy endorsement to write.
In mid-August, I wrote the publisher to double check that they had my new mailing address to ensure I got a physical copy of the book when it was released, and to tell them again that I thought this book should be in every hospital waiting room across the country. There was no way that the publisher had the marketing capacity to make a stunt like that happen, and I remember asking God to get some billionaire to make it so. (It was a foolish prayer; not irreverent at all. God is not ordinarily given to working marvelously and mightily through billionaires, although no, nothing is impossible for God.) I don’t remember when the book finally arrived. I also don’t know why I didn’t drop her a quick note when it did. I don’t know why I didn’t do any of these things, but I suspect all these modest gestures would have still been too late.
I had been thinking about her prayer book this week for someone else, that her words might serve another’s life, and thought, “I should drop Elizabeth a note too.” Intuition — terrifying intuition — led me to drop her name into the search bar. Immediately my eyes saw the word, “Obituary,” and I said, “Sh**,” a solid Hebraic form of prayerful lament. I have not found her actual death date online but because it’s possible she died in mid-August, it makes sense that I hadn’t learned the news. Perhaps the thought crossed my mind and I pushed it away when I wrote the publisher because I hadn’t wanted to inquire. I was afraid to know. She and I were not in the habit of corresponding regularly. No news is good news, right?
It’s sad. It’s just sad. I cried because the world lost a wonderful human being, and because I was so late to learning it, and because I do not like the inescapable realities that threaten, rob, and terrify all the is good, right, true, lovely, and living. None of these, nope, none get the last word, even after our last breath. The verbs of my life naturally tense up in the face of those realities, yet Elizabeth-in-Christ is reminding me today that we are free to tense those verbs into prayer, and the more creative and fierce and courageous and generous we can get, the better.
The final prayer in this good prayerbook — the prayer available online here as well —
A Prayer Not to be Beatified
“God, who welcomes us into heaven: I have seen throughout my life that people who die when young or middle-aged become saintly in the memories of those they loved and left behind. Please, God who remembers, help my memory be a blessing to my beloveds when I am gone, but help them lovingly remember my flaws. How I don’t detect dust or pet hair in my home but relish reality television and always crave candy. I don't mind if they forget they ways I wounded and failed them, but don’t let them perfect me in their minds when I’m gone. Also, let me live longer than expected. Please. Amen.”