The Barely Mentionable Word

So help me God, I'll say it again:

Call me ignorant and simpleminded. (Lord knows I've been named worse.) It's just that, among all the various things I've  been reading, I can't believe what I keep failing to read during these days of (supposedly) rampant pandemic. In particular there is one key, utterly essential word that I seldom if ever run across, whether by word of print or word of mouth. Yes, even from ostensibly Christian quarters. I mean the one indispensable ingredient, apart from which all our best recipes for confronting, controlling and subduing this viral monster are so much blind flight, and whistling in the dark.

Which is to say, of course, prayer. But not just as our usual means of getting "what we want," or of submitting to what God wants ("ALRIGHT! I'll go along quietly! JEEZ!"). But prayer also as the means to our understanding of what is already there  - of precisely whatever God has already allowed to be placed in front of us. And of how to deal with it effectively, according to that Narrow Way that truly optimizes the real, God-discerned well-being of any place, and of any people living in it. As distinct from our own many bold and glorious, if not global, agendas for addressing those same issues.

Because, regardless of whether we're supposed to be enforcing and extending the lockdown, or scaling it back, or mitigating or minimizing it, or even lifting it altogether, the fact remains:

In prayer alone do we have the one thing utterly necessary, not just to the right execution of any of these measures, but to the right choice among them, for every tiniest locale, region, country and megacountry (any two of which, even as neighbors, may be vastly different). As opposed to just connecting with them, you know, facelessly and globally, in the usual brutal human way. Neither just prayer as a last resort, but as the vital concomitant of every stage of every resort we attempt.

Think of it - that same language of God apart from which Love itself is barely audible, and can barely utter its meaning: how is it that this strange, yet anciently intimate and familiar tongue, is something I hardly hear mentioned as strategy or tactic - or even weapon - in this conflict? Much less the primary and foundational weapon of all.

Maybe it's because of what prayer requires - indeed demands - in order to be truly knowledgeable, penetrating, separating, like the Word of God, of joints and marrow, soul and spirit. And because once prayer is duly armed with this requirement it becomes so - well, Divinely hard to politicize. But let me see if a few metaphors can help. (You're also welcome to come up with some of your own if you like.)

Think of prayer as a vehicle that only moves at its right speed - neither too fast nor too slowly, not too soon or too late - only so far as it is fueled by love. And think of love as the one proper fuel that moves our prayer most accurately according to the nature of the thing - of that creature or situation - for whom we are praying, or about which we are praying. Finally, consider this kind of prayer as the humblest, directest, most readily accessible way of loving someone with whom we vehemently, even politically, disagree. Or even despise.

Because in a sense there is no creature, human or otherwise - not even a coronavirus! - the essence of which prayer cannot know, cannot discover, cannot draw out from its hiding place, as it were, and into the open, so that at last it can be seen by us even as God sees it. Nothing can be long hid from prayer so long as our praying is fueled, not by hurt or fear or anger or frustration, but by love. Indeed, there are some creatures so timid, so guarded even when they do evil or great harm, that they can only be known, only emerge from their disguise or covert or lair as love draws them out. The reason is that our dealings with them only become fruitful - only get to the heart of them - inasmuch as we see and know them for what they are, and not merely for our own image of them. Or worse, through the bubble of our own favorite narratives and preconceptions. Even something as miserable and vile as a coronavirus is a problem we can hardly afford to politicize, whether we veer to the ("callously" impatient) Right or to the ("tenderly" self-righteous) Left.  Indeed, the more "clever" and slippery and persistent any threat, the less we can afford to politicize it. Much less conspiratorialize it. (There: now you can call me REALLY simpleminded.)

Again, for what they are. But for that degree of clarity, love alone is what opens every window and unlocks every door into the house, so to speak, of any created thing. Including those we need to overcome, or develop immunity to.  And prayer alone - humble, unpresuming, trustful and loving prayer - is our one complete, our one more-than-scientific objectivity.

(Edited.)