The Narrative Image

I'll be honest with you. I've tried to pray. But I don't think I do it right because, while my part of the conversation can often be lengthy and verbose, I find that I'm always ending up supplying God's end of the conversation too...through fairly creative attribution. I can remember back to my college days when I got the phone call that informed me that my dad had finally succumbed to cancer and how I ventured out into the freezing cold night and climbed to the top of the bleachers at Lindstrom Field and beneath a heaven of harsh twinkling stars, concluded the conversation I'd maintained for several years regarding a possible healing miracle. I don't know what I was expecting...maybe an apology... maybe a pat on the back, or a hug.  I had to settle for the usual ambiguous silence. I'm always jealous of the Old Testament characters who actually got to talk to God. Here is part of a story about Elijah who is on the run (in fear for his life), and s...

4. And the Lord said unto Moses, “This is the land I promised you, but you shall not enter. Psych.” 5. And Moses died. DEUTERONOMY  (as paraphrased by Shalom Auslander in The Foreskin’s Lament) I wanted to talk to God the other day. I thought it should be possible because on any given Sunday, if I go to my church, the respectable people of my community are gathered there addressing God as ‘father’ and there’s a kind of script they hand out that even gives you appropriate words to pray. Sometimes there is even a collective petition – they all kind of do this choral speaking thing - usually to ask for health related things. So it isn’t just some isolated crazies carrying on one-sided conversations on the sidewalks of downtown Portland who talk to God…it’s all those adults who watched you grow up and who made you go to Sunday school and who otherwise seem completely rational. What I wanted to talk about was the way people you love eventually get old, and t...

In August, the Portland area Lutheran church softball season culminates in a two day tournament at Meldrum Bar Park. Church softball can be distinguished from other forms of softball by the ritual group prayer that opposing team members participate in together before they try to beat the hell out of each other. The typical prayer format: General thanksgiving for nice weather Vague promise to enjoy fellowship Petition for injury free play As with most prayer, the recognition of answers requires active and imaginative interpretation. There’s really nothing like sliding in shorts (except maybe falling off a motorcycle) to set up the circumstances that will showcase the miracle of self-repairing skin. Softball, with its rules and regulations, is rich with metaphors and analogies that can be applied to life in this universe. In the following dialogue from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, commander Sisko explains our linear existence with a baseball metaphor. JAKE ALIEN "Baseball...