It has been a year to test the faith of humanity. The air itself is filled with grief, whether you suffered a personal loss or not. Every day you wake up, it’s a constant dread of your family catching the infection or someone close to you losing the battle against death. All we can do is sit helplessly, praying with fervor that we don’t beget the fate of those we empathize with. It’s not only the disease which is wrecking havoc, it is this sense of impending and somewhat inevitable doom that is asphyxiating us in our rare moments of relief.
Images of people’s suffering — an old man gasping for air while offering his oxygen cylinder to a younger but more critical patient, a son sitting outside the window of a parent, watching them as their heart rate monitor slows down with each passing hour, parent standing outside the room of a child while they burn in fever — is branded like the Mark of Cain on everyone’s soul. What God allows the faithful to suffer is a question that has spawned numerous debates. But the collective grief of humanity on such an unprecedented scale has necessitated the need for an answer.
Where is the all forgiving entity we prayed to for protection, whom we trusted with our faith and reverence . Where is the God who threw his own son out of heaven because he refused to honor his most remarkable creation — humans. We humans ,at the end of the day , are utterly helpless and haven’t really harbored illusions regarding our strength. This is why despite efforts to achieve longevity, humanity as a whole rarely fixates on immortality. Is it then too much to ask for deliverance from pain which seems so unnecessary and utterly meaningless, exacerbating the loss that human life is already plagued with? Why take away the limited years that one has with the people they love. What is this God who stands deaf to all the pleadings for help that He has received over the past years. Should we even pray to him?
Except I am no longer sure if we pray to God at all. At least not the God that we think of — the all powerful entity who will smite those who persecute the meek. I think we pray as an outlet for our deepest emotion — the love we possess for others and can’t express. It is both an act of selfishness and selflessness. Selfish because we pray for the safety of those we care about because the pain of losing them would be intolerable. Selfless because not once in our prayers do we pray for our own well being. In that moment, despite the most of basic of all biological predilections to preserve our own lives, we pray that any harm that has to come might as well come to us.
While burning in fever, we put on a mask of strength to the best of our ability so that our family doesn’t collapse under the weight of watching us writhe in pain helplessly. Random strangers set up camps , risking their own lives to find medical necessities for the sick and the ill. Strangers arrange for cremation of someone who has passed away, despite running the risk of getting infected.
The prayer we offer to God is actually to an entity who has entrusted us with free will. And maybe he does want to help but much like the family of a person suffering from CoVid — all he can do is watch us helplessly , hoping to ease our pain but realizing that at the end of the day it’s an individual burden to bear. No matter how much he loves us, he can’t intervene and can only ease our minds amidst the constant omnipresent chaos through prayer. Prayer reminds us that beneath all our fears and restlessness is love, love for our loved ones and even for humanity whose pain constricts our hearts. It reminds us that maybe we underestimate our own resilience — for those who have suffered losses have stepped up to support others and honor the memories of those who have passed away. Our heads bowed and eyes closed , we imagine a more peaceful time so that when we open our eyes and see faces around us taut in shame , pain or guilt, they still seem beautiful. Because in that moment the hurt or grudges doesn’t matter — only your regard for them does. The depth of pain reflects the unquantifiable love we as humans are capable of feeling. Maybe prayer is just that — a reminder that despite all reasoning of evolutionary biology, humans are capable of a level of selflessness that can never be predicted . The care we feel for our own child or parent is what equips us to care for others. Through one person, we develop the capacity to love . Affection, as an emotion, is unreasonably generous in its distribution and coverage . When we pray or bless someone, we acknowledge our own limitation and helplessness in that moment. We know that we can’t protect the person we are blessing or praying for and despite that , with all our hearts, we just hope that forces of fate align in their favor.
Maybe God exists, maybe he doesn’t. But selfless and unconditional love surely does. Prayer is just a way to remind ourselves of that and perhaps the way we personify it is in the form of an all forgiving mother/father — one who can’t carry your burden but one who will listen to you narrate your pain with infinite patience. And when it’s time , welcome you home with open arms, reminding you that happiness was never in anything you did but in your existence itself. In just being. And our existence, no matter how brief or inconsequential, added an angle of selflessness to someone else’s life . It gave them a moment of respite when they prayed for your well being to their God, not realizing the exceptionalism of the act itself. This is what makes prayer holy. Love grants it the sanctity and in return it offers us hope.
