Old School Prayer

If you’ve ever seen the movie Old School, there’s a scene in which Will Farrell (the “John Belushi” of the group) has to debate James Carville in order to save the status of the thirty-something fraternity he founded with two of his buddies. Things aren’t looking good as he steps to the mic, but then he appears to be possessed by some foreign spirit and proceeds to go toe-to-toe with the former Clinton adviser on the economic issues presented and carries the day. As soon as the debate finishes, he gyrates again as the spirit that had carried him departs, returning once again to the lovable, ignorant dufuss he had been for the previous 90 minutes.

That’s the best explanation I can come up with for some of the prayer experiences I have had with the patients.

It’s not so much that I am a dufuss… Okay, I suppose that point could be argued. But because I tend to gravitate towards the “heady” side of religion I have wondered how I would do with spontaneous prayer. After all, when delivering homilies I like to have what I will say specifically mapped out and coordinated on deliberate x-y coordinates so that what I want to say comes across in the exact manner I want to say it. But the difference between writing and speaking homilies is that you have a lot more control of how the text comes out on the page… the difference between giving a homily and praying with a patient is that when giving a homily, you can use notes.

Well, it’s not like I don’t bring a list of ready-made prayers when I walk into the room, but at some point of the patient visit it is all about stepping aside, and letting the Spirit do its work. It’s the stepping aside part that I have always seemed to have trouble with in my own life, but here at the hospital I at least have more opportunities to practice that. When I’ve remembered to step aside, I have had the spiritual equivalent of winning a debate with James Carville.