I sit silent in the pew as the pastel sea of people file into the church. I am 23, yet Easter morning is just the same as it was when I was younger.
My mother sits tying my brother’s tie and he grabs at his neck uncomfortably. She is squished between the two of us — a precautionary measure to make sure we don’t act up. I am 23, he is 18 and she still takes this precaution.
We sing, we pass trays of tiny glasses of grape juice and even tinier crackers (Brian of course manages to spill his on me and I sit through the rest of the service with a sticky calf. I guess I could have wiped it off but are you supposed to wipe the blood of Christ off your leg? Even with it being just the symbolic blood? I wasn’t sure, especially on Easter, so I left it). Then, the minister asks us to bow our heads in prayer.
I look around at the people with their chins tucked into their chests, hands clasped together and minds busy with prayer. I watch the sunlight streaming through the windows and lighting the cedar beams holding up the roof of the old church.
I haven’t prayed in a while. I’m not sure if I remember how.
I close my eyes and think about the huge pile of laundry sitting in the floor of my bedroom and I ask God to remind me to do my laundry, I never make time to do that anymore. I feel guilty praying for this type of thing, like somehow I am making a to-do list in my head instead of talking to God. But that’s the funny thing about praying. Sometimes what comes out just comes out.
I think about budgets — both news and the bank kind — about doctor’s appointments, fears, a rip in the leather of my car seat, uneasy feelings, scratched CDs, again about my empty bank account, awkward silences, uneaten cupcakes, unreturned phone calls, unsent emails, internship rejection letters, a sense of uselessness, Easter egg hunts, genies, wishes, the devil, deviled eggs, love, family, conditions and predictions.
Then the flood gates open and I pray they close again.
I pray for my mother and my father, pray they don’t hate each other, I pray for my brother and my sister. I even say a quick prayer for the brother I don’t’ speak to because I feel like I should. But of course that is the wrong reason to pray for someone. I pray for friends, for boyfriends and for their parents. I pray that my cell phone battery will stay charged for just one day. Then I find myself praying for answers to questions I haven’t even bothered asking.
I realize my prayer is getting too broad so I thank God for days like to day, sitting next to my mother and brother, and for afternoons like later where I’ll have lunch with my father. I thank God for tolerance because I know I’ll need it, and then, I thank Him for helping me find my iPod, for Redbox, for Mellow Mushroom, for visits from old friends, for down comforters and for Downey wrinkle releaser. It saved my dress this morning.
When the preacher begins to speak again my mother squeezes my hand in hers and I open my eyes. I rest my head on her shoulder and listen to the low, soothing voice of the man at the pulpit. I wonder what he prayed for. His prayers were probably better than mine.
I judge people sometimes from the emails they send me — the spelling and grammar, but also the tone and politeness, the humor and sincerity. I wonder if God judges people by their prayers.
I guess God doesn’t really judge. I close my eyes anyway and say a quick prayer for better prayers in the future.
Faith is a tricky thing. Even when you think you’ve lost it, it manages to find you. It even manages to find the bad prayers.
