“The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie–deliberate, contrived and dishonest–but the myth–persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.”
― John F. Kennedy (Commencement Address at Yale University, 1962)
One of the top 50 iconic scenes in movies is from True Romance. Dennis Hopper and Christopher Walken give an acting clinic in a face-off over how to tell if someone’s spinning a yarn. The dialogue is classic Tarantino, his cadence leaps off the screen with these two acting legends.
I ask the question to myself: how do I know when I’m lying? The fact is, it usually starts every morning at 6am over a cup of coffee and prayer. I lift up my pious thoughts and desires and put on my best mask — uh face — of humility. I squint a little, with a gentle side-to-side shaking of my head to help my earnestness. Sometimes I don a white robe, pull out the harp, and release the white doves to fly free through my studio.
The more honest approach would be for me to drop the horseshit and deliver this heartfelt message below to the Lord.
“Father, you’re welcome that I joined you this morning. I’m glad to give you my three minutes of genuine focus, in the midst of 15 minutes of drift. I’ll read a devotional while thinking of my action items today, skipping over to Facebook and Instagram for a quick dopamine hit of envy. I pray you speak to me through scripture, even if I only see it on the big screen at church on Sunday’s. Speaking of, Lord, I’ll give you an hour on each Sunday… at the early service, so I don’t miss the Cowboy game. I’ll volunteer and serve others… maybe twice this year… for an hour at lunch… on Friday’s. In December, if I make my bonus as planned, I’ll tithe almost 2.5%, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the vacation fund. After all, I worked hard for my money. I pray you help me spend two hours and 22 minutes on social media today. In return, you get five, maybe seven minutes in the evening, when I’m exhausted, after binging Game of Thrones, again. I’ll pray for my friends for 2.5 seconds, you know the one, the impactful manifesto of “Be with my friends.” No name-dropping from me, because you know their specifics… plus it would require another eight minutes of focus if I actually vocalized their needs. Thank you for this time I gave you Lord. Remember my career goals, give me wisdom and strength to achieve all my desires. Amen.”
Am I cynical? I think not. Best to show my true colors to the Lord (it’s not as if He doesn’t know them already, so why hide?). My prayers ARE a disjointed mess. I have to focus intensely to make them remotely lucid. If not, the drift occurs after maybe 30 seconds.
The most honest prayer I can fire up to God is one I stole from Anne Lamott, one of my favorite authors. If not familiar, she’s sorta the female version of David Sedaris with a peppery sheen of Christ thrown on top. She’s raw and laugh-outloud funny as she pines the depths of sorrow and heartache, like this gem:
“You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns
out that God hates all the same people you do.“
Her prayer is “Help me, help me, help me… And thank you, thank you, thank you.” Boom, amen. The rest is pretty much splitting hairs, right? I guess you could start with the thank yous first, and then the helps, but God is already 1000 moves ahead in hearing our pain, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.” (Romans 8:26)
Yep, the best prayer I can come up with sounds like this, “Lord, thank you for putting up with my selfish ass. Thank you for sticking with me 24/7, year after year, when I look to you so rarely. Please teach me to give you all my life, the way you did for mankind. Even a smidgen of your sacrifice would make me a better man. Help me reverse my 24-hrs. Instead of one for you and 23 for me, flip it. Make me sacrificial, make me a good listener when friends speak. Less words, more ears. Make me know that my agenda isn’t as important as I think. Help me lose the ego-driven goals, and adopt the needs of others.”
Help me, help me… Thank you, thank you. In Christ’s name. Amen.
See ya next time. ML