Makeshift memorial for victims of the mass shooting in Las Vegas, NV Oct. 1, 2017 – photo by Drew Angerer / Getty Images

By Colleen Shaddox – Writer, Activist (Cohort 1)

Extending “thoughts and prayers” in the wake of mass shootings has become such clear code for inaction that I suspect politicians will soon find a new catch phrase. It is an easy dismissal of so much terror and death; lives are reduced to a sound bite. It is also a dismissal of prayer, the practice that shapes my life and my activism.

“Prayer” has become a synonym for “nothing,” and nothing could be further from the truth.

Prayer is not a letter to Santa, a list of things that we want our supernatural friend to rain down upon us. Prayer, real prayer, is not meant to change the everlasting and immutable God. It is meant to change us. When I bring the sufferings of the world to the cross, I am not asking Jesus to end them. He already died in the name of universal love. It falls to us now, and so I come to the cross asking for the courage to practice that love as boldly as my limited ability permits.

I have sometimes wondered if these politicians, resolute in clinging to the status quo, do in fact offer up the prayers they speak about publicly. I hope not, as this would be an insult to God — akin to offering up a prayer for weight loss as you say grace over a hot fudge sundae. God is not an enabler.

Prayer is the enemy of the status quo. People of all faiths pray to connect to the divine. That connection is a powerful act of hope. If we can fathom something that transcends our human experience, then we can change that experience. We can work toward a world of peace and justice — a world where, in the terms of my particular faith, every guest is received as Christ. If there is as much prayer going on in the United States as our public discourse implies, I can only assume that we’re not doing it right.

There are people in mosques, temples, churches and other houses of worship who know, as the book of James said, that faith without works is dead. But they are overshadowed by the posers who dole out dismissive “thoughts and prayers,” or worse — use religion to cloak their homophobia, or sexism or what-have-you in false sanctity. It gives religion a bad name.

When I’m working to end the deportations, the mass incarceration, the rigged economy or other injustices that cry out to heaven for redress, I’m often fighting alongside people who are actively hostile to religion. They have come to see it as a force for exclusion and inequality.

I cannot blame them. Recently it was announced that House Speaker Paul Ryan will keynote the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner, held annually by the Archdiocese of New York to fund its charitable outreach. “The Al Smith Dinner is a fun evening, but with a serious purpose: help those who have the least. I’m honored to be a part of this special dinner that has supported New York’s children for decades,” Ryan said in the event press release. The press release did not mention that Ryan has allowed the federal Children’s Health Insurance Program to expire, endangering the health care of 9 million children and 370,000 pregnant women. I am sure he will make a fine speech at the dinner and invoke the Catholic social teachings that I love. But when given a chance to act on them, he demurred. Add that to the TV preachers who close the doors of their megachurches to people seeking sanctuary and the endless “thoughts and prayers” that dishonor both God and the dead after a mass shooting, and it is easy to understand anti-religious sentiment.

It would be tragic if people’s impression of religion was reduced to the posturing of self-serving public figures. Some of my most joyous times have been spent in a church basement soup kitchen or working with my brothers and sisters in Christ to end the death penalty. Faith motivates many people to make the world better.

But they are far too busy to hold news conferences to issue hollow prayers.

Originally published in the Hartford Courant, Opinion, October 8, 2017.

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