doubt

A question of prayer

April 27, 2015 by Billy Coffey 2 Comments

Working at a college has its advantages. Having access to such a big group of smart people comes in handy for me in my daily life, especially when it comes to some of the larger problems I run across. In the years I’ve been there, I have spoken with English professors about writing, political science professors about the goings-on in the world, and religion and philosophy professors about, well, religion and philosophy.

I would call none of our conversations a sharing of ideas. Their words and the diplomas that hang on their office walls are proof enough they are much more intelligent than little ol’ me. I’m good with that. There are advantages to being the dumb person in the room.

So the other day when my mind asked a question my heart had trouble answering, I went knocking on some office doors.

The first chair I sat in was in front of four bookcases that stretched floor to ceiling and were stuffed with titles I could barely pronounce. The professor—smart fella, with a Ph.D. in philosophy courtesy of an Ivy League school—looked at me with kind eyes and asked what was on my mind.

“What’s the point of praying for anything?” I asked him. “I mean, if God knows everything and has a perfect plan, then won’t His plan work out regardless of what I tell Him?”

The professor took off his glasses, rubbed the lenses with a handkerchief. Then he put the glasses back on and looked at the bookshelves behind me, looking for an answer.

“Let’s see,” he told me. He rose from the chair by the desk and brought down one book—this one old, with a worn leather cover and yellowed pages—and then another, this one so new the spine cracked as he opened it.

He talked for ten minutes about free will and time being an unfinished sentence. Or something. My nods at first were of the understanding kind. The ones toward the end were because I was fighting sleep.

I still don’t know what he said.

The door down the hall belonged to a religion professor (Ph.D. again, Ivy League again). I sat in a different chair in front of different books and asked the same question with the same results. More free will, plus something about alternate histories and God “delighting in Himself.”

It wasn’t the first time I’d walked into a professor’s office with one question and walked out with a dozen.

To make matters worse, my mind was still asking that question and my heart was still having trouble answering it.

What’s the point of praying for anything? Because it seems a little presumptuous to ask for anything from a God who already knows what I need (and what I don’t).

I was at a standstill over all of this until I talked to Ralph at the Dairy Queen last night. Ralph doesn’t have a Ph.D., and the only Ivy he knows is the kind that grows on the side of his house. And though far from an expert on matters of the spirit, he does preach part-time at one of the local churches when the regular preacher is sick or on vacation. And since he waved at me and was eating his cheeseburger all alone, I figured what the heck. I’d ask him:

“What’s the point of praying for anything?”

Ralph paused mid-chew. Cocked his head a little to the side. Said, “What kinda stupid question is that?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Just popped into my head the other day. But seriously, why ask Him for anything. And really, why pray at all? If God already knows what’s in my heart, why do I have to speak it?”

Ralph finished his bite, swallowed, then said, “B’cause it ain’t about you, son.”

“It’s not?”

He drawled out a slow “No” that sounded more like Nooo. “Boy, prayin’ ain’t about askin’. Ain’t even about praisin’, really. Nope, prayin’s about you gettin’ in line with God. It’s not about Him gettin’ in your head and heart, it’s about you gettin’ in His.”

Ah.

I left Ralph to his cheeseburger, answers in hand. And honestly, that answer made sense. Because life—better life, anyway—is always about Him more than about us.

And I left with other wisdom, too. The next time I have a question, I think I’ll spend less time in a professor’s office and more time down at the Dairy Queen.

Future Kevin

October 3, 2014 by Billy Coffey 1 Comment

He sits by himself at a small table in the back of the lunchroom. Chin in his hand, eyes, down. His fingers flick at discarded bits of the day’s pepperoni pizza that were missed by the lunch lady’s dishrag. The afternoon sun filters through tiny handprints on the windows, making the grass stains on his too-short jeans glow a deep emerald.

He sees me as I walk in—there’s something about a door opening that makes even the meekest of us look up in reflex—and turns aside. Today is Friday, and I told him I would need an answer by the end of the week. But his back is turned away and his body is folded in upon himself to make him as small as possible, and I think no. No, he still doesn’t know.

Waiting for my kids in the school cafeteria gives me a sense of connectedness to a part of their lives I mostly miss. I get to see where they eat, how they interact with others, what kinds of people surround them. And I get to see other kids, too.

Kids like Kevin. The one alone at the small table in the back.

He’s there every day, waiting for someone to pick him up and trying to stay hidden until they do. I said hello to him Monday afternoon. I was a bit early that day, and there was no one else to talk to. I was counting on a one-sided conversation. Kids like Kevin—and there seems to be many of them today, yes?—desire nothing but the next moment, to continue on, regardless of the unnamable weight they bear. I didn’t know what Kevin’s was (and I still don’t), but I knew it was there. I could feel it.

So I said hello. Sat down beside him at the small table and flicked a bit of food away—it was French fries that day—and waited for him to talk. It took prodding, but he did. General stuff. Nothing of home. Kids like Kevin, with their unnamable weights and downcast eyes, don’t talk much of home.

He’d been in trouble that day. Kevin showed me the white slip of paper his mama had to sign. Daydreaming, the note said. I told him I daydreamed a lot and that daydreaming was fun, but school was important.

“No it isn’t,” he said.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” I asked him.

Shrug.

“Come on,” I said. “You have to want to do something.”

Shrug.

“When I was your age, I wanted to be an astronaut. Didn’t work out, but I still look at the stars a lot.”

Kevin said nothing.

“Tell you what, I’ll be back on Friday. You think about it and let me know then. Deal?”

He said he’d try. The kids came and we left. I waved to Kevin as we went out the door. He didn’t wave back.

And now, he’s ignoring me.

“Hey Kevin,” I say.

Shrug.

“Been doing any thinking about what I asked?”

His eyes said yes. I pulled a chair up to the table and sat. My mind tried to think of something little Kevin wanted to be. Maybe an astronaut, like I wanted once upon a time. Or President, though I figured there weren’t many kids nowadays who wanted to grow up to be that. Maybe a scientist.

“I guess I’m going to work at Little Caesar’s like my mom.”

Oh.

“That’s all you want to do?” I ask him. “I mean, that’s great if that’s all you want to do. But…that’s all you want to do?”

He lowers his head to find something to flick on the table. “That’s all I can do,” he says.

“I don’t believe that,” I tell him, and Kevin shrugs.

The kids are on their way. I say goodbye to Kevin and leave him at the table. I don’t know when someone will pick him up, don’t know when I’ll see him again. But I know I’ll worry about him. A boy like that, a boy that young, should see this world as one of possibility and magic. His sights should be set higher than where they are. He should believe in himself more.

But I wonder if we’ve reached that point where we no longer inspire our children to become more than ourselves. If we see them as mere carbon copies, destined to make our own mistakes and suffer through our own failures.

And if we’ve accepted the lie that says greatness in life is reserved for all but shy boys in too-small jeans who sit alone at the lunchroom table.

Why write at all?

May 8, 2014 by Billy Coffey 11 Comments

Screen shot 2013-09-02 at 12.27.55 PM I’m still hoping that one of these days I’ll learn not to turn on the news. There have been times—long periods in my life—when I’ve done without it to amazing results. The world reduces itself to the most basic elements when you are ignorant of what’s going on beyond your front door. Things don’t seem that bad.

But then I always go back eventually, checking the internet or the cable news once in the morning and then again in the evening. I tell myself there are too many ignorant people in the world to count myself among them, even if that ignorance really does contain a large portion of bliss. As an adult, I have a responsibility to know what’s going on. It’s a duty.

I’m sort of between the two right now. I know some of what’s going on out there, but not a lot. That’s how it is in the middle of writing a book. Getting those pages in every day takes precedent over much of anything else. I don’t have time to tune in, and so I tune out. I figure the world can carry on without me for this little while.

I finished up a little early the other day, though, and decided maybe I’d just take a few minutes to hope on a few websites. Not long, just a few minutes. Sort of like stepping outside to lick your finger and stick it in the air to see which way the wind was blowing. In the span of those few minutes, I learned that 200 girls had been kidnapped in Africa and threatened with being sold into sexual slavery. I learned that a young woman had won an award for filming her own abortion. I learned that climate change is now climate disruption and we’re all going to either drown or die of thirst, and if you happen to disagree with that notion you’re a Neanderthal. And then I shut my computer before I could learn anything else.

I sat there for a little bit, looking out the window on our little neighborhood. The window was open, letting in a bright sun and a breeze that smelled of blooming flowers and cut grass. A guy down the street was throwing a ball to his dog. Two kids next door were shooting hoops in the road. The retired couple who just moved in across the way were planting some rose bushes. It was a scene likely played out in thousands of neighborhoods in America right then, maybe yours, too, but its commonness in no way tarnished the beauty of it in my mind. That little scene I looked down upon, that was life. That was people trying to get by, trying to enjoy things despite it all.

The wind kicked up just for a moment, just enough to sneak through the big oak outside the window and ruffle the papers I’d just written on. They curled in on themselves and then went tumbling into a pile on the floor. I gathered them up and sat there on the carpet, trying to order the pages from memory, and a funny question crossed my mind:

Why are you doing this?

It took me a minute to figure out exactly what “this” was. I thought at first I was asking myself why I was sitting down on the floor with a stack of papers in my hand, but that didn’t sound right. Too obvious. And then I thought maybe the question was more about why I was sitting upstairs to begin with, and not outside enjoying the spring day. But that wasn’t it, either. No, it was more fundamental than either of those, something that struck me deep down where I most live.

The question was why I write at all.

The question was why bother.

Why spend so much time and suffer through so much stress to write books in a country where most people would rather turn on a television than read a chapter? Why go through the endless heartbreak of being a single shouting voice among the tens of thousands of other shouting voices? Why believe that in some small but significant way, what I do can pause a fallen world from its steady pace toward the edge of some great abyss?

Why bother?

And you know what? I’ll have to think about that and get back with you. Because right now, this moment, I really don’t know.

A question of prayer

April 21, 2014 by Billy Coffey 5 Comments

Working at a college has its advantages. Having access to such a big group of smart people comes in handy for me in my daily life, especially when it comes to some of the larger problems I run across. In the five years I’ve been there, I have spoken with English professors about writing, political science professors about the goings-on in the world, and religion and philosophy professors about, well, religion and philosophy.

So the other day when my mind asked a question my heart had trouble answering, I went knocking on some office doors.

“What’s the point of praying for anything?” I asked him. “I mean, if God knows everything and has a perfect plan, then won’t His plan work out regardless of what I tell Him?”

The professor took off his glasses, rubbed the lenses with a handkerchief. Then he put the glasses back on and looked at the bookshelves behind me, looking for an answer.

I still don’t know what he said.

It wasn’t the first time I’d walked into a professor’s office with one question and walked out with a dozen.

To make matters worse, my mind was still asking that question and my heart was still having trouble answering it.

What’s the point of praying for anything? Because it seems a little presumptuous to ask for anything from a God who already knows what I need (and what I don’t).

“What’s the point of praying for anything?”

Ralph paused mid-chew. Cocked his head a little to the side. Said, “What kinda stupid question is that?”

Ralph finished his bite, swallowed, then said, “B’cause it ain’t about you, son.”

“It’s not?”

Ah.

I left Ralph to his cheeseburger, answers in hand. And honestly, that answer made sense. Because life—better life, anyway—is always about Him more than about us.

And I left with other wisdom, too. The next time I have a question, I think I’ll spend less time in a professor’s office and more time down at the Dairy Queen.

The waiting (is the hardest part)

February 27, 2014 by Billy Coffey Leave a Comment

For two months he has saved every penny and dollar, every bit of allowance and report card money, counting it all weekly and sometimes daily, all for the Lego train set that is due to arrive upon our doorstep sometime today. My son is proud. I’m proud of him. It takes a lot of work and discipline to save that much when you’re nine years old, to say No and No again to the pack of baseball cards or the long aisles of toys down at the Target. To say instead, This is what I want, and even if I can’t have it today, I’ll have it eventually.

It got easier as it went. Saving so much money, I mean. When you’re first starting out, all you see is how little you have and how much you need. You think you’re never going to get there. The road is too long, the temptations too great. That’s when most give in. That’s when I give in. And my son nearly did, but then twenty dollars turned into fifty, and that became seventy-five, and then a hundred and fifty, and now all that’s left is to stare out the window to a dull February day and wait for the sound of the UPS truck.

It’s been a great lesson, really. Saving up, sacrificing immediate gratification for something better down the line, learning the value of hard work and determination. Kids need a lot of that nowadays, I think. Adults too, for that matter. But now comes another great lesson, and in many ways a much more difficult one to digest and endure.

Now comes the wait.

So he sits in the recliner with the dog (who knows something important is happening but isn’t sure what, and so just waits with her ears back and her nose to the air) and rocks because he’s too anxious to hold still. Every sound of an approaching engine is greeted with a sudden jerk of his head, body flexed, chest puffed, waiting to charge the door like a sprinter out of the blocks.

So far, there have been four trucks, three cars, and a woman on a horse. No UPS truck.

It’s not coming, he says.

Yes it is, I say.

Well then, where’s it at? he asks.

Out for delivery.

How do you know?

Because that’s what the tracking says.

But what if he wrecks before he delivers it? And what if my train goes flying out of the truck because it’s rolled over five times and some other kid picks it up and takes it home and doesn’t help the driver at all, and the driver just sits there and bleeds to death? What then?

I don’t have an answer to that, other than to think my son may make a good novelist one day.

Just hang on, I tell him. Just wait.

And then he says the two words that sum up so much of what it means to live in this world, to want and dream and strive and hope—

Waiting sucks, he says.

It does, I tell him, and then I tell him that “sucks” really isn’t the kind of word he’s supposed to be saying, especially with his mother right in the next room. But since he referenced it with regard to waiting, I let it slide. Because he’s right, you know. Waiting really does suck.

We spend so much of life doing that. We wait to grow up, wait to graduate, wait to fall in love and graduate from college, wait for a good job and to have kids and to retire. Sometimes, we even wait to die. I’ve read the normal person will spend fully ten years of their lives waiting in some sort of line, whether it’s the post office or the grocery store or the bank.

With all that time spent waiting, you’d think we would get pretty good at it. But we aren’t. Waiting hurts. Waiting reminds us too often of the thing we want and how miserable we are without it, whether it’s something to have or someone to love. It convinces us we’re somehow less without it. We ache and we pine and we pout. And it doesn’t have to be something big, either. Sometimes, it can be something as insignificant in the big picture as a Lego train. But that’s the thing. I don’t think most of us really want a lot in life, we just want a little more than what we have.

So I’ll just sit here for a while with my son and stare out the window with him. We’ll talk while we wait. We’ll laugh and giggle. We’ll discuss the deeper things of Lego creation and growing up. Because that’s the thing, too—waiting might indeed suck, but it sucks a lot less when you have someone else there, waiting with you.

ANSWERS

February 10, 2014 by Billy Coffey 1 Comment

To a certain extent, ritual plays a part in every life. We all adhere to our own ceremonies to mark the important occasions that come along. It can be something as extravagant as a neighbor of mine plans every Thanksgiving, when his home becomes a meeting place for family scattered to all corners of the country. Or it can be as small as the shot of whiskey a friend of mine takes at 4:12 in the afternoon each July 27, in remembrance of his father’s passing.

My own ritual—smaller than either of those I mentioned, yet to me no less significant—revolves around cleaning out my desk before the start of every novel. It is no mammoth undertaking, usually requiring no more than an hour’s time and involving no more than shelving books and filing papers. But I like to start fresh with each story I write, and nothing says fresh more than an empty slab of oak upon which to write.

As I cleaned and filed and shelved this morning, I came upon a tattered manila envelope at the bottom of a stack of papers. ANSWERS had been written diagonally across the front in red permanent ink, in a hand I can scarcely recognize now. The inside bulged with notes and scraps; newspaper clippings; magazine articles; letters written to me and copies of letters I’d written to others. Some were dated as recent as last year. The oldest had 4 Oct. 89 scrawled along the top.

I spread them out before me, reading each one until I remembered, trying to place the where and why of myself—what it had been that led me to include those stories there, in my envelope. I am not to the point that I can say I have lived many years upon this earth, have accumulated many things along the way, and yet I have always counted that envelope among my most important possessions. Because, what you see, what rests in there are all the questions I wish to ask God when I am able to see Him face to face. They are the things I wish to know.

I will stop short of calling that envelope EVIDENCE FOR PROSECUTION, though I admit it was very nearly labeled that instead of ANSWERS. And whom was I determined to prosecute, way back in the very dawn of my adulthood? God, of course. And for the single reason that I did not approve of the way He did things.

Laugh at that all you will. Take a look inside my envelope, though. You may change your mind.

You’ll see an obituary for a high school classmate of mine, who was killed in a freak accident not two years after our graduation—a bright, funny, loving boy, full of life until he wasn’t.

You’ll find a story of a missionary tortured and killed.

A small girl who wandered from home and became lost in the woods, never to be found.

A single mother of three, dying of inoperable cancer.

Accounts of oppression, disease, and injustice. Diary entries of heartbreak and doubt. Themes of death and evil. Tales that over the years forced me to wonder what you or anyone else have wondered at one time or another—

How can a good and loving God allow such things?

At a certain point, I understood there would be no answers to that question on this side of life. People have been questioning the origins of evil and it’s place with God for thousands of years, and we are not too far down the road to answering it. So I’ve kept all my questions here, in this envelope.

How exactly I would get that file to heaven with me was something I never quite figured out. In the past few years, I’ve devoted less and less time to pondering that problem. Not because evil no longer bothers me—it does, perhaps more now than ever—but because of the very likely possibility that I won’t care much about my questions in heaven. I’ll be too full of joy. I’ll be too busy spending time with all those who passed on before me, and preparing for those yet to arrive.

I still don’t understand a great many things in life. I suppose I always won’t. I don’t know why there must be cancer, and why that cancer must take so many innocent people. I don’t know why there is evil, or why there seems to be so much more of it than good.

I don’t know why God does the things He does, or allows what He allows.

But I can do one thing. I can approach those questions now as though they were parts of a story, one I would write just as God writes His own upon all of creation. And I would say—not as a pastor or theologian or philosopher, but as a storyteller—that it is far more beautiful a thing to be redeemed than be innocent. It is far more amazing for fight for peace in a fallen world than to maintain peace in a perfect one.

And it is far more noble to spend your life in search of something than have nothing to search for at all.

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