Re: OT: Prayer, ritual and magic // was conlang website

On Wed, 18 Oct 2000, Adrian Morgan wrote:

> Yoon Ha Lee wrote, quoting M.S. Soderquist and respectively herself:
>
> > > > <nod>  Is it silly to pray for people after they're deceased...?
> > >
> > > Also, of course, if you believe that the deceased may be trapped in
> > > purgatory, you can always pray to speed up their release to the better
> > > parts of the afterlife. :)
> >
> > Alas, or not--no.  I've never understood purgatory.  I seem to pray for
>
> As a protestant, I have to say I believe there's no such thing. The
> reason, in a nutshell, is that purgatory seems to make a mockery of
> forgiveness.
> That statement could lead down either of two tracks:
>
> (1) My beliefs about the afterlife. The whole point of my faith is that
>     given personal committment, God will transform us into perfect beings
>     incapable of sin. That is what Heaven is all about. As for Hell, I
>     believe it to be the place where souls are destroyed if they refuse
>     to accept the only God who can possibly bring them fulfilment.
>     Since I believe that souls are literally destroyed in Hell, I do not
>     believe that Hell is eternal.
I must be far, far off the beaten track.  I have never found the
afterlife any sort of personal reason to believe in God.  <apologetic
look>  I accept, with some discomfort (mainly concerning hell--which I
also don't understand very well), that it's there.  The way I look at it,
I am on this world to try, as best I can, to do God's will, whatever it
may be (and I'm sure He thinks I make hash of it more often than I
should...but God help me, I do try).  I look at religion as guidelines to
what is right and what should be done.  If Christianity taught that we
all fell into nonexistence after dying, having done His will (or tried),
I would be content with that.

As you may surmise, the afterlife and need thereof has never made much
sense to me either.  :-/  Mainly because it's something I've never
succeeded in imagining.  I will live as best I can; and afterwards,
whatever God wills for me, I will accept it.  In this case that seems to
mean an afterlife.

> > people who are now deceased mainly out of habit...and there are a
> > couple who, unfortunately, I don't know if they're alive or dead.
> > (Whoops...attempted an anaphora? that doesn't work in English, but
> > hopefully the meaning is clear.)  I suspect it doesn't *hurt,* though.
>
> I think it makes sense to pray, "Lord, I trust that they are in your
> hands". Apart from that, I don't think it makes a lot of sense. How do
> you pray for someone who is already perfect, and experiencing God in a
> way beyond earthly experience?
?

I think the prayer I make is either habitual, or more to reassure myself,
than for the sake of the person who is already gone beyond.  Sometimes.  But:

Does something have to be imperfect for you to pray for it?  <puzzled
look>  I often pray in thanks for the sky, the wind, the stars...(I'm
afraid I'm too animistic for my own good)...is it also nonsensical to
pray about someone in the sense of, You are there with God, and I
remember you when you were alive in a fleshly sense, and I remember now
that you have gone ahead?

> That said, M. Soderquist is right about God and Time. If you believe you
> can pray for something that has already happened, then you might well do
> so. But I can't think of any occasion when I have prayed in that way.
Hmm.  Perhaps "pray about" might have bene more accurate in the latter
case than "pray for."

I often think I would make a much, much better agnostic than a
Christian.  <sigh>  One muddles through and hopes one doesn't get too
much of it wrong...a teacher once told me this about forgiveness and it
has helped me much: when God forgives it's like taking the nails out of a
piece of wood.  The nails aren't there any longer so He sees our sins no
more...but we still have the holes.

I have very many holes, alas.

YHL, muddling through