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Searching for faith on a certain path to war
© St. Petersburg Times Monday, the day that President Bush declared a moment of truth for the world, was also the day of the regular monthly meeting of Daughters of the King, a women's prayer group at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in downtown Tampa. The Daughters of the King, as a rule, pray for anybody in the parish who needs prayer -- the sick, the solitary -- or requests it. These days, the prayers have a particular bent. When I met them, about 20 women were seated around a table in a back room of the church, circulating a list on which they wrote down the name of any soldier they knew who was deployed to the Middle East. They also passed out powder blue buttons to wear, buttons that were the brainchild of an Episcopal seminary in Massachusetts. Each button bears the drawing of a dove and the name and age of an Iraqi child. The Daughters of the King at St. Andrew's have put those children on their prayer list, too. The meeting broke up around noon, and some of the women moved to the church itself, with its blood-red carpets, white arches and dark vaulted ceilings, and took seats on the benches normally reserved for the choir. Members of St. Andrew's have been leading noontime prayer every day since last Sept. 11, the first anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Rarely do they have much of an audience in the pews. But they pray anyway. On Monday, the prayers were led by Virginia Crippen, a grandmotherly figure possessed of a steady voice. "O God of many names, lover of all peoples; we pray for peace in our hearts and homes, in our nations and our world," she said. The other women answered her, just as steady. "Dear Christ, our friend and our guide, pioneer through the shadow of death, passing through darkness to make it light, be our companion that we may fear no evil, and bring us to life and glory." What is happening at St. Andrew's is an exercise of faith, a belief that prayer can change the course of events. Myself, I have terrible trouble having faith, believing in prayer, much as I might like to. The question is simple, isn't it? How can even the deepest believer have faith that prayer might change events when the events themselves are moving in an inexorable fashion? The president says if Saddam Hussein doesn't leave within 48 hours he can expect war. Saddam doesn't blink. Soldiers on both sides are waiting for orders. The rest of the world, on edge, waits. These facts do not daunt the women of St. Andrew's. One compared the prayers for peace to praying for a terminal cancer patient. It would be foolish to pray for a cure, but not for a good and peaceful death -- one that leaves behind lessons for the living. So here's my question. Will we go to war with Iraq to come out wiser at the other end? And what price will we have to pay for our wisdom? How many dead? How many chemical and biological weapons will be spewed? "It's tough to have faith when everything falls apart," said St. Andrew's rector, the Rev. Stephen Ankudowich. In the next breath he added, "I don't know how people can live who don't have faith." That much, I understand. Maybe what I'm groping for is a definition of faith. The best I can come up with is believing that, even out of the worst events -- like war -- some small moments of good can be extracted and held on to. Virginia Crippen, the leader of Monday's prayers at St. Andrew's, was hanging on. "Today we pray to lift up the leaders of our nation and all the leaders of our small world," she said as her prayers ended. "Protect the people we love who may be in harm's way." -- You can reach Mary Jo Melone at mjmelone@sptimes.com
or (813) 226-3402.
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Times columns today From the Times Metro desk |
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