My Thoughts About Prayers

The time has come again. The tweets and the retweets are circulating. People are attaching hashtags to Instagram posts and Facebook comments.

"The time has come again."

What a horrible thing to say, but it rings horribly true. When you hear somebody say, "The time has come," it's implied that they knew it was coming, whatever "it" is.

It's shocking how not shocking it is. The news coverage comes on, the notifications from news apps ring in, and even Snapchat adds the news to to the featured stories on its discover page. What was the first thing that came out of my mouth, and most likely the mouths of many others?

"Again?"

Whenever you read this, I would I like to let you know where I am.

I am home. It is 6:59 PM on a Thursday evening. It is February 15, a day after Valentine's Day. I should be finishing my reading assignments and studying for an essay about the Cold War, but I'm not.

I am not.

I am angry.

For me, Anger is an umbrella term. I feel it often, simply because the circumstances of my life keep feeding it like fuel. There are many different kinds, but I'll narrow them down to the two categories that seem to take precedence over the rest. To be brief:

First, there is the Fleeting Anger. In my opinion, I find this one more dangerous than the second. It's the kind that dictates my most impulsive choices. It's the anger that forces insults to fly from my lips before I can process the repercussions, and it's the one I've had to mature in order to control.

The second is the Deep-set Anger. This is the kind that I can't explain as well as I wish I could. It hums somewhere in the depths of my soul. Its faint echoes resonate with the sound of distant memories I've tried so hard to suppress. The reasons behind this are a story for another day, but all anyone has to know is that this kind is what fuels my creativity. When I write, film, dance, act, create—this is what catalyses it all. It has to be released in this matter, because I'm afraid of what might happen if I choose another kind of outlet. Thankfully, artistic creations have saved me from that potential predicament.

Then, on the day we should have been celebrating love of all kinds, when flowers and balloons could be seen wherever you looked, there was a third kind of anger. I had never experienced it quite like I did yesterday. At first, I thought it was just like the Deep-set Anger, but that couldn't be right. That kind of anger is derived from my own personal memories and experiences, not what I see or hear on the news. With that anger, I can take a deep breath, sit down, write down a story plan or draw up a storyboard, and create. But not this time. Perhaps in the future, something creative will come of this, but in the heat of the moment, it was much more than that.

It felt like all the heat in the universe melded with an electric current and struck me harder than ten lightning bolts ever could.

17 Dead After Ex-Student Opens Fire.

Never in my fucking life should I ever have to respond to that heading with,

"Again?"

I apologize for the profanity, but it's a common way to express one's anger, and my God does mine have to be expressed.

God. God. What an interesting entity to discuss. Interestingly enough, I am religious. But don't worry, I'm not here to try to convert anyone.

I'm a devout Catholic. Liberal-minded, but nonetheless, Catholic. While many others in our seemingly crumbling nation hide behind church doors when gunshots ring out in the distance, I'm here to say that it was religion that made me realize I had to step out. No, I don't mean step out and leave my faith. I mean that faith itself screamed at me, cursed at me, and told me to open my eyes. Can you imagine that? My faith, cursing at me.

Over the past year I noticed that I've developed a habit laced with paranoia. Whenever my parents leave the house to go to the supermarket, or my sister steps out for a night with her friends, or my boyfriend drives off after giving me a ride home from school, or I give my other sister a hug before she leaves for work, I say a silent prayer. It's not long, nor is it extravagant. It's just a simple,

"God, please watch over them. Please keep them safe."

That "please" is where the paranoia lies. It's more than just a word of respect for the God I believe in. It's desperation. I've been saying this prayer for months now, but the intention has changed over time. I used to ask God to keep my loved ones safe. Nowadays, I don't ask anymore.

I beg.

Please, God. Please keep my parents safe. Please watch over my sisters. Please watch over my friends, my boyfriend, everyone that I care for. Please, please, please.

Prayers are obviously important to me, or else my paranoia and desperation wouldn't be entwined with so many of them. I believe in the power of prayer, but I can't sit here and pretend that prayer encompasses all of what my religion is supposed to entail. I've been taught many things by the pastors and priests in my life, but one thing has always stuck with me. God's love is not just some distant, ethereal idea; God's love is supposed to be expressed through us. The way we act, the way we treat people, the way we live our lives. God's love is supposed to resonate through all of that, which means God's love is spread through action. We are supposed to be actively spreading God's love.

Then, why? Tell me, world. Why? What the hell are we doing? What the hell are we saying? Why the fuck are we pretending that a retweet button on a #ThoughtsAndPrayers or #PrayFor[InsertNextVictimHere] tweet is a form of action, just because a few thousand people chose to click it? Why the hell aren't we doing anything? Clearly, I can't speak for everyone. Not everyone believes in my God. But for those who do, what the hell is going on?

If God wants us to spread his love through active effort, how can we sit here and only pray? What are we praying for? Are we asking God to fix everything? Why in the world would we do that, when the mess we're asking Him to fix is one we created entirely on our own? This was a mess created by people playing God, so how could we act like we deserve an easy way out?

We need to fix our own fucking mess. We let it reign free and fester out in the open for too long, and because of it, people are dead. Parents come running through hospital corridors, searching for their children only to find out they're dead. Brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, friends, girlfriends, boyfriends, wives, husbands, loved ones, humans, souls.

I'm angry, because I don't know what to do. As I write this, I hear sirens wailing outside my house, and I can only hope that those cars aren't headed for another tragedy. My free time shouldn't be spent conjuring up emergency plans for how I would act if a shooter came busting through the door. I should be reviewing history facts, not all the different moves and take-downs I learned from my martial arts class just in case I suddenly need them. I shouldn't be sitting at my school desk, staring at a PowerPoint about digestive enzymes, silently vowing that I will protect everyone around me with my life regardless of how some of them have treated me in the past. Every student, every teacher, every bully, every friend. They are all the subject of someone's prayers, whether they know it or not, and although I pray often, it should not be the only thing I do. I'm fucking sick of people who act like it's enough. It's time for action.