Wednesday, January 13, 2010

What You've Missed During Week 2

Fear not, dear readers...I did not drop the proverbial ball on week 2 of 52! (You were worried, weren't you? I knew it...oh ye of little faith!)

Funny we should mention faith. That's the reason we're here right now. I've spent the last seven days trying mine on for size and stretching it to a new sort of dimension one person at a time.

It started last Wednesday night/Thursday morning. I was flying to Texas to nab me some Boy Wonder and I don't really consider myself a fan of flying. I guess the gliding through the air at 30,000 feet isn't so bad, but the news coverage of crashing and exploding into mountainsides, the a##hole jihadists and their nundy bombs, the turbulence, the half-ounce of cranberry juice they give you before they disappear for the entire flight, the $7 can of pringles your kid polishes off before they do the safety brief....you see where I'm going?

On the ride in, my shuttle driver told me how (thanks to my mom giving him all the gory details of my brain surgery two years ago) he'd added me to his prayer list. He was so grateful to finally see a positive outcome all the time he prays for people he never sees, and he gave me a huge hug. He said it's great to pray for folks all the time, but you usually never get to see them answered because folks drift in and out of your life...

I also have this superstition, and it's between there and here that the idea for week 2 came about. I always have to repeat the Lord's Prayer during the loud, rickety part of the takeoff. I hate that part. Hate, hate, hate it. I look like a deranged cat with my claws dug into the arm rests and my toes curled under in fear. A few years back I realized that the effort to concentrate on remembering the words to the Lord's Prayer distracted me enough to get me through the lift off...almost all the way to the part where the Captains says we can move about the cabin and piss off some beverage cart drivers.

On one leg of the journey, a flight attendant asked a fat man in the row beside me if he would move so a mother could sit by her two small children. We were in a small plane to say the least. I felt like I was on the inside of a garden hose the way we were packed in, so the stress level was high enough. But when the man refused, and then refused to even scoot over to the window seat so the mother could have the aisle next to her kids, my fear of flying coupled with my dislike of rude bastards made me want to climb across the girl next to me and punch the man in the throat.

But a weird voice told me maybe I oughta pray for him. (Please note that this does not happen to me. I could care less, most of the time, what is ailing strangers when they act like selfish pricks. But this was different.)

So, for each day of week 2, I made myself find the least likely candidate for a prayer and send one up in their honor.

Please don't think I've gone all Pollyanna on you, folks. Some of the prayers were really just watered down versions of "Dear God, Please shut that woman up before I lodge her cellphone down her throat. Amen" or "Heavenly Father, that guy is a dick. You should do something about that. In Your name..." (Really, really. Ha!)

I got better at it as the week went by, and found myself sending little tiny "shout outs" for folks based on ailments they probably didn't even had. ("Hey, Jesus. Me again. That woman is limping. Maybe she was attacked by the wolves of Eagle River when she went outside to warm up her car this morning. Please make the wolves find a new place to hang out. But not too far out in the boonies, 'cause those aerial hunters are still out and about. Think maybe you could do something about those punks? Amen." I'm kidddddding, jeez!)

I'm no Mother Teresa, and I'm sure I probably won't be. Like, ever. There's still a few folks out there that should have qualified for this challenge, but who I stubbornly refuse to pray for. Especially the Cracken who makes my 9-5 life sheer hell right now. No prayers for you! You can choke on your fork.

(See? Miles to go, Megan...miles to go.)

But it did open my eyes a little to what other folks are likely carrying around with them. My favorite "victim" this week was the little old lady who sits on her stool at the Wal-Mart entrance late at night. She's sweet as can be, and each time I see her now, I pray that she works there because she wants to...and not because she has to.

I'll update Week 3 tomorrow.

And if you're lucky, I might just say a prayer for you sometime soon. (I'm kidding. If you're reading this and we've met, you can bet your sweet a#@ I've probably already prayed for you. )

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