Prayer, American Style

“The Right Way to Pray” by Zev Chafets in the New York Times Magazine this past Sunday is a not-to-be-missed article.

Chafets is a fine reporter and writer. Fueled by intelligence, humor and doubt, he writes in the first person without excessive posing. I was surprised to discover that Chafets is 61-ish. I thought he was much younger.

His opinion columns drive his detractors absolutely nuts. A 2003 piece in The New York Daily News is still being quoted far and wide, usually by someone who is furious about it. It comments on the death of Edward Said, the renowned Columbia University prof widely known for his theories and work on anti-Arab/Islam attitudes in the Western world. (Said’s 1978 book “Orientalism” put him on the map.)

Chafets slammed the venerated Said, winding up with this:

“He[Said] didn’t blow up Marines in Lebanon in 1983, ignite the Palestinian intifadeh or send Wahhabi missionaries to preach violence against infidels. He certainly didn’t fly a plane into the World Trade Center. What he did do was jam America’s intellectual radar. He wasn’t the architect of 9/11, but he was the father of the 9/12 inability to comprehend it…
Ah, well, Said is in paradise now. As an Episcopalian, he’s ineligible for the customary 72 virgins, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s honored with a couple of female doctoral candidates. No one deserves it more.”

That Chafets article caused the sort of intellectual whiplash that good and controversial writers visit on me:

–Yes! I’m a Zionist too!
–No! I don’t despise Said!
–Yes! Love the one-liner about the virgins!

Anyway, back to his latest NYT Magazine piece. “The Right Way to Pray” describes the various ways Americans are approaching their theo-chats, seeking support from megachurches and prayer coaches.

Prayer is a subject usually neglected by newspapers, and very rarely written about in the first person. Selling a story on prayer to a secular publication is an uphill battle. For years I tried in vain to get whichever newspaper was employing me at the time to consider a piece on people praying in their cars. I am positive that more true prayer takes place behind the wheel than any other place in America.

Why? Because it is the one place most of us have real privacy and time for reflection. And because driving routinely puts us in situations that trigger involuntary entreaties to the Higher Power: Please don’t let that cop be coming after me. Please stop that speeding dump truck coming up in back of me at this stoplight. Please get me over this very high bridge without fainting. Please don’t let that rattling noise be anything expensive.

I’m sure cellphones have cut into drive-time prayer. Which is ironic, given that we should all be praying more often than ever: Please God, don’t let that guy texting his girlfriend plow into my car.