Second Lot Of Thoughts

*Warning. Depressing as shit. I wouldn't read it if I were you

I've been thinking about prayer these last couple of days. Makes sense, I've been doing an awful lot of praying since my pilgrimage started.

I feel like a hypocrite walking into these places of worship. But I do. I take off my hat and bow my head and I pray. It has been roughly 20 years since I last prayed and at first it was awkward, stinted. Now it flows easily. I don't believe in God. If he does exist he is either a cruel God or a useless one. Neither of which I'm interested in worshipping.

But I send my prayers up all the same.

The practice brings comfort.

I have my little ritual. I bow my head and send up my prayers like ethereal messages in a bottle. I dont say amen, instead I touch my heart then my forehead, and flick my fingers up above my head. As if wishing the bottles good luck on their journey.

I imagine them floating there in the ether amongst a sea of prayers. I imagine them clinking against my other prayers that have floated there so long.

Prayers to be seen.

Prayers to be heard.

Prayers for safety and protection.

Prayers asking for friends.

Prayers to stop the bullies.

Prayers to not like girls.

Prayers to be brave.

Prayers to be better.

Prayers to stop the pain.

Prayers to stop the loneliness.

Prayers to stop the bad thoughts.

Prayers for love.

For somebody, anybody to love me. For a friend to keep me company. For a hero to come and rescue me from my pain, my loneliness, my dark empty world. Desperate prayers for love that were wrenched out of my aching, unloved, unwanted heart.

I remember these prayers and they hurt. They hurt because I can't go back and protect her from the bullies, from the abuse. They hurt because the God she worshipped was much like the father she worshipped, completely apathetic toward her.

That's why I am amazed to find myself praying again, for reasons I don't know. I don't believe. I dont pray to a God, Christian or otherwise, I just send these prayers off.

Or...

Maybe I am praying again so my old prayers won't feel alone floating forever in the vastness.

Maybe deep down there's a glimmer of hope burning like a single small candle flame in the depths of a dark dusty church abandoned.

Maybe one day a higher being will pick up one of these bottles and read my prayers and smile because She sees I am no longer in need of them...