I don't see prayer for their well-being as distinct from prayer for recognition of their errors, much less as opposed to it. Because that recognition is essential to their well-being, just as such recognition is necessary to my own flourishing in life. I confess my sins every day. Some days I even mean it. Some days I even see change, a little.
And as Solzhenitsyn says in "Repentance and the Self-Limitation of Nations" (see excerpts: https://fliphtml5.com/cvft/jpag/basic), every nation, too, must repent. Truth and reconciliation.
While I'm proud of my country, I'm ashamed of my country. Both. I own the bad with the good.
(People who can see only the bad should get out more. E.g., the West African country of Mauritania officially outlawed slavery in 1981. Unofficially, it still exists there.)
I get that, definitely. But there's something about praying for my political or ideological "enemies" in particular that leads me to think that, while praying, I should bracket my particular convictions about how wrong they are and how much they need to change their minds. I'm pretty convinced that Claudine Gay is serving the wrong kind of power, and I'm *really* sure that her witch hunt against Roland Fryer before she was president was flat-out despicable and, in terms of how it bodes for the future of academia, terrifying. But when I'm praying for her, I think I just need to envision her life opening up well, in whatever way would be best. Sounds cheesy, but otherwise it just becomes another argument in my head.
Hi Connor. I really relate to: "I even nurse a lingering pride in the United States." I'm a traditional leftist in many ways, as you know, and I do believe that the "US is, after all, an imperialist genocidal settler-colonial tyranny." But that's only once side of the US. ,US has so many missions. Some of the missions are to stamp out out indigenous cultures, LGBTQ+ people, and the polar ice caps, but at the same time, the US has those positive missions we learned about in pulic school.
I have a lot of pride in the US. Want to make this country actually be the shining beacon on a hill, not just try to be some of the time.
Agree:
"But I can’t help it. My ancestors helped to settle and fought to found this country. " Many of my ancestors were slave owners; many fought in the Confederate Army. I even know the name of my ancestors' plantation in Tenessee (one of them wrote a book about it in the 1890s; part of the Civil War Era literature that eventually culminated in Gone with the Wind).
Humans aren't one thing. Humanity has many sides to it. Our ancestors who did things we don't agree with had their good and not so good sides. Our enemies are human. Dehumanizing has to stop.
My dad has a painting of the Kentucky plantation of some of our ancestors that I'll inherit someday. I don't like slavery, but I do think a connection to our ancestors is an unqualifiedly good thing. And so is pride in one's home, whether it's the US or Turkey or Zimbabwe. There's nothing wrong with feeling attachment to the story of your own country. It's crazy how controversial that statement is these days.
That helped me. That is okay to have a positive feeling about being connected to our ancestors. Even if those ancestors would be considered despicable by some people. Example: My middle name is a family name; that's the tradition among my waspish forbears. The name is Loring. General Loring fought along side General Lee in the Confederacy. So I'm named after a Confederate General. But somehow part of me kind of likes William Wing Loring (my brother namned William BTW). I read a biography about him. General Loring appears to have been a decent person (for a career soldier), respected and appreciated by the soldiers and military higher-ups alike.
The parable of the Prodigal Son for me reveals the essence of Christianity. For God there is no unpleasant person, but unpleasant sins, and none of us are free from sin, even the sin of hating the one who repents because that seems to "invalidate" our past good deeds.
What is difficult for us to understand is that our good actions are not necessary to "buy" God's approval, or His forgiveness, the commandments that God gives us are for our exclusive benefit, since fulfilling them is the only way to feel the God's presence, the only source of true satisfaction that never tires or cloying.
There is no way to earn merit with God (for example, the number of years we have been "behaving well", or the number of "good works" we have done), because due to our finite nature, it is impossible for us to make God "indebted" to us, our debt is always immeasurably greater. That's why our good deeds are not for merit, a very human concept based on debt and interest (the opposite of giving unconditionally).
This does not mean that following God's commandments (in intention rather than form), are not necessary, they are, because it is the only way to manifest our free will and tell God that we want to be with him and humbly ask Him to allow us to feel His presence. If we choose, freely, not to follow the commandments, it is a perfectly valid choice, but that free choice will determine that we never feel His presence and that is Hell.
Everything starts with prayer, because we can't have what God wants to give us if we don't ask for it. So, if we want peace, hope and charity in our heart, a good way to ask for it is by asking for our "enemies", that is, those who we consider our "younger" brothers and sisters because they asked for their inheritance in advance and went abroad, while we stayed enjoying the presence of the Father.
But, If we are really enjoying the presence of the Father, then we will naturally want our brothers and sisters to enjoy it too, no matter the sin that stains them, and spontaneously we are going to ask our Father to help them enjoy it. But if it is difficult for us to ask our Father for that, then it means that we are not enjoying enough of His presence yet, and we must redouble our requests to the Father so that He allows us to feel Him, that is why God wants us to pray for our "enemies", it is a compass that God gives us to Him ..
Many great things in this article, Connor. Now, not the point of your essay, but an aside: The link to the cola ad, with young people on a hillside in Italy, was hilarious -- in a bad way. I'm thinking of how the camera pans to dissolve the superficial multicultural diversity into corporate-manipulated uniformity. Each individual vibrant young person revealed to a be a robot consumer. How sad, how painful. A corporation tried to harness the lyrics of a heartfelt song (although saccharine, still moving, to this viewer at least), to serve its own branding plan and goal for soft drink hegemony.
A Coke commercial that would work for me would be simple: Just a decent-looking guy facing the camera, saying, "Coke. It tastes great." Then the show I'm trying to watch would come back on
You make very good points. When I am in tune with nature, as I am every day, the anger melts away. I need to be outdoors much longer. I will be mindful of your words, but pray harder for Ukraine and the unbelievable death toll in Gaza.
"The point is to pray for their well-being...."
I don't see prayer for their well-being as distinct from prayer for recognition of their errors, much less as opposed to it. Because that recognition is essential to their well-being, just as such recognition is necessary to my own flourishing in life. I confess my sins every day. Some days I even mean it. Some days I even see change, a little.
And as Solzhenitsyn says in "Repentance and the Self-Limitation of Nations" (see excerpts: https://fliphtml5.com/cvft/jpag/basic), every nation, too, must repent. Truth and reconciliation.
While I'm proud of my country, I'm ashamed of my country. Both. I own the bad with the good.
(People who can see only the bad should get out more. E.g., the West African country of Mauritania officially outlawed slavery in 1981. Unofficially, it still exists there.)
I get that, definitely. But there's something about praying for my political or ideological "enemies" in particular that leads me to think that, while praying, I should bracket my particular convictions about how wrong they are and how much they need to change their minds. I'm pretty convinced that Claudine Gay is serving the wrong kind of power, and I'm *really* sure that her witch hunt against Roland Fryer before she was president was flat-out despicable and, in terms of how it bodes for the future of academia, terrifying. But when I'm praying for her, I think I just need to envision her life opening up well, in whatever way would be best. Sounds cheesy, but otherwise it just becomes another argument in my head.
Forgive them, for they know not what they do.
(But but but... I'm RIGHT!)
Hi Connor. I really relate to: "I even nurse a lingering pride in the United States." I'm a traditional leftist in many ways, as you know, and I do believe that the "US is, after all, an imperialist genocidal settler-colonial tyranny." But that's only once side of the US. ,US has so many missions. Some of the missions are to stamp out out indigenous cultures, LGBTQ+ people, and the polar ice caps, but at the same time, the US has those positive missions we learned about in pulic school.
I have a lot of pride in the US. Want to make this country actually be the shining beacon on a hill, not just try to be some of the time.
Agree:
"But I can’t help it. My ancestors helped to settle and fought to found this country. " Many of my ancestors were slave owners; many fought in the Confederate Army. I even know the name of my ancestors' plantation in Tenessee (one of them wrote a book about it in the 1890s; part of the Civil War Era literature that eventually culminated in Gone with the Wind).
Humans aren't one thing. Humanity has many sides to it. Our ancestors who did things we don't agree with had their good and not so good sides. Our enemies are human. Dehumanizing has to stop.
My dad has a painting of the Kentucky plantation of some of our ancestors that I'll inherit someday. I don't like slavery, but I do think a connection to our ancestors is an unqualifiedly good thing. And so is pride in one's home, whether it's the US or Turkey or Zimbabwe. There's nothing wrong with feeling attachment to the story of your own country. It's crazy how controversial that statement is these days.
That helped me. That is okay to have a positive feeling about being connected to our ancestors. Even if those ancestors would be considered despicable by some people. Example: My middle name is a family name; that's the tradition among my waspish forbears. The name is Loring. General Loring fought along side General Lee in the Confederacy. So I'm named after a Confederate General. But somehow part of me kind of likes William Wing Loring (my brother namned William BTW). I read a biography about him. General Loring appears to have been a decent person (for a career soldier), respected and appreciated by the soldiers and military higher-ups alike.
Quite a name! Apparently some of his descendants are now Spanish nobility: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marqueses_de_Casa_Loring
And the most important downtown park in Minneapolis is named after the same family: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loring_Park
The parable of the Prodigal Son for me reveals the essence of Christianity. For God there is no unpleasant person, but unpleasant sins, and none of us are free from sin, even the sin of hating the one who repents because that seems to "invalidate" our past good deeds.
What is difficult for us to understand is that our good actions are not necessary to "buy" God's approval, or His forgiveness, the commandments that God gives us are for our exclusive benefit, since fulfilling them is the only way to feel the God's presence, the only source of true satisfaction that never tires or cloying.
There is no way to earn merit with God (for example, the number of years we have been "behaving well", or the number of "good works" we have done), because due to our finite nature, it is impossible for us to make God "indebted" to us, our debt is always immeasurably greater. That's why our good deeds are not for merit, a very human concept based on debt and interest (the opposite of giving unconditionally).
This does not mean that following God's commandments (in intention rather than form), are not necessary, they are, because it is the only way to manifest our free will and tell God that we want to be with him and humbly ask Him to allow us to feel His presence. If we choose, freely, not to follow the commandments, it is a perfectly valid choice, but that free choice will determine that we never feel His presence and that is Hell.
Everything starts with prayer, because we can't have what God wants to give us if we don't ask for it. So, if we want peace, hope and charity in our heart, a good way to ask for it is by asking for our "enemies", that is, those who we consider our "younger" brothers and sisters because they asked for their inheritance in advance and went abroad, while we stayed enjoying the presence of the Father.
But, If we are really enjoying the presence of the Father, then we will naturally want our brothers and sisters to enjoy it too, no matter the sin that stains them, and spontaneously we are going to ask our Father to help them enjoy it. But if it is difficult for us to ask our Father for that, then it means that we are not enjoying enough of His presence yet, and we must redouble our requests to the Father so that He allows us to feel Him, that is why God wants us to pray for our "enemies", it is a compass that God gives us to Him ..
Many great things in this article, Connor. Now, not the point of your essay, but an aside: The link to the cola ad, with young people on a hillside in Italy, was hilarious -- in a bad way. I'm thinking of how the camera pans to dissolve the superficial multicultural diversity into corporate-manipulated uniformity. Each individual vibrant young person revealed to a be a robot consumer. How sad, how painful. A corporation tried to harness the lyrics of a heartfelt song (although saccharine, still moving, to this viewer at least), to serve its own branding plan and goal for soft drink hegemony.
A Coke commercial that would work for me would be simple: Just a decent-looking guy facing the camera, saying, "Coke. It tastes great." Then the show I'm trying to watch would come back on
You make very good points. When I am in tune with nature, as I am every day, the anger melts away. I need to be outdoors much longer. I will be mindful of your words, but pray harder for Ukraine and the unbelievable death toll in Gaza.