Prayer

I've always thought of myself as a spiritual guy. I was raised a Catholic and have always appreciated much of my experience in the Church (Catholic grade school, high school, college). Catholicism certainly had an effect on my professional work on courage and the book Raising Courageous Kids. I'm proud that it was published by Sorin Books at Notre Dame.

I'm not a church-going guy at the moment. I have a difficult time accepting the dogma of any organized church. If I belong to anything, I want to be genuine in believing what the denomination believes.

I say this to give background to my comments about prayer. I think there comes a point when there is nothing you can do to affect some outcome. Let's say I have a home in Galveston facing the third worst hurricane in the history of the Gulf. I have left the area and found secure shelter with my family and my pet dog. There is a lot I can do with my family to make a life wherever we are. But of course I worry. Another example. I am a college graduate student who is worried about the impact of the storm on families. I see their heartbraking stories on TV. But I am swamped with course work and teaching responsibilities. I want to volunteer but my priorities interfere.

Neither of us can do anything about the hurricane. Both of us have narrow degrees of freedom. The anxiety and sadness we feel cannot be alleviated by action. But we can pray. Not to steer the hurricane elsewhere. My prayer to God is put a divine hand on the heart of two parents to give them strength as they travel by car right now on an expressway north from Galveston. My prayer to God is to put a divine hand on the heart of the woman who is traveling north to Kansas to pick up a horse trailer to return to Mississippi to retrieve her two starving horses and return here with them. My prayer is for all caring people in our nation to do what they can to help. But there comes a time to look up at the stars at night, take a deep relaxing breath, and reach out to touch divinity with a heartfelt prayer.