“Prayer and Feeling Good”
One advantage of being advanced in years is the capacity to handle situations on the fly.
While having a nice conversation, on e-commerce, with a friend over a cup of coffee, the guy next table, from out of the blue, said, “Excuse me, can I ask you a question?”
So I said, “Yes, what about?”
He asked, “Is telling a joke a prayer?”
Confused, I asked back, “What do you mean?”
Innocently he said, “Well you know, when you crack or hear a joke that makes you and people laugh, making us feel good, isn’t it a prayer because it makes us all feel good?”
Without hesitation, I said, “Well it depends on your values and orientation. If a green or vile joke makes you laugh, I don’t think you are praying”
Persisting, he said, ”But it makes you feel good; isn’t that what prayers are supposed to do, to make you feel good?”
Getting into my element this time, I said, “Look, if somebody fell down the stairs and you laughed, and it is common for Filipinos to laugh at people’s embarrassments, are you saying a prayer? You are saying a prayer if you sympathize with the guy rather than laugh at him.”
I hope that the guy is an isolated case otherwise we are really screwed if there’s a tribe of them out there of who has a convoluted idea about prayer and feeling good.
It is all to common for people to push and shove and jockey for the best position in the presence of celebrities or stupid politicians (and they are so many to county), yet we don’t push and shove and jockey as much in putting ourselves in the presence of God – which is what prayer is all about. It makes us feel so good to be seen with the former, but unload all our miseries to the latter.
“Feeling good” is a simple phrase laden with pitfalls. For what can make one’s senses feel good can ruin his person, his soul. The sins I have committed in my life all satisfied my senses, but they make me feel miserable as a person. Greed can definitely satisfy one’s hunger for goods, but will not add a whit to his being a person of honor. Honesty, character, and belief in one’s principles have made a good many people outcasts from society, subjects of ridicule, discriminated upon and humiliated; lose their jobs and possessions, even death. But these guys stand 10 feet taller than ordinary mortals in the scale of deep personal satisfaction.
Laughter can definitely make us feel good. In fact it is a necessary, natural psychological reaction so people can cope with things which are often beyond their capacity to cope under normal situations.
So does a prayer. Being present with God can be awesome. But to equate prayer and laughter is no less than saying that an oak is an elm because both are trees.
Prayer can make us feel good in a more profound ways than by just laughing. They come from loving, even those difficult to love, of being patient under the most trying circumstances, of being happy with what we are and generous with what we have, being faithful in a world of faithlessness, being gentle, especially to those who are meek and underprivileged, and self-control for excesses can bring ruin to ourselves and those around us.
“Feeling good” from prayer comes from the knowledge that we have made the lives of others a little bit better. In fact, that is probably the best prayer anyone can do.
Unfortunately the guy kept his silence and distance before I can give him a homily on the real essence of “feeling good” brought about by an honest, deep and sincere prayer.
