Paddling Through Single
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Hey, John Dixon here with a quick Undeceptions single. This week, a little bit different. I've got a friend, Dr. Laurel Moffat, giving us a little reflection on the pandemic, prayer, kayaking. Laurel, thanks so much.

Well, a little while ago, I completely forgot about the pandemic. A friend took me kayaking on an inlet of the harbor where for an hour, instead of thinking about the threat of infection or the need for distance, there was just water, a couple of kayaks and two friends floating in and out of earshot of one another. In recent months, the pandemic has opened the door wide to what constitutes a threat

which means that our understanding of safety has also been redefined. As the virus moves silently among us, by us, it's made things that were once simple - going to work, school, shopping - complicated and packed with consequence. As a result, it's only natural that our minds work overtime to understand and alert us to potential dangers.

It's difficult work that takes a toll on both the mind and the body. David Brooks says the pandemic spreads an existential feeling of unsafety, which registers in the neurons around your heart, lungs, and viscera. It alters your nervous system, changing the way you see and perceive threat.

An anxious circuit of thought is hard to break, especially if wherever we look we can find a danger to behold. The counter to this is the experience of safety, however brief. The difficulty is in finding such a thing in the middle of a pandemic, when ideas of danger and safety are all changing. I stumbled into an experience of safety in kayaking. My mind rested for the first time in weeks, but since then

I've been realizing that paddling bears some similarity to another form of exercise in life: prayer. Since March of this year, analysts have noticed an exponential rise in numbers, not of illnesses, but of a single word typed into online search fields in 95 different countries all over the world: prayer.

The rise in searches for prayer surpasses the number ever recorded since Google Trends began tracking such things around 2004. It's not known how the searches for prayer relate to conversions or spiritual growth within any religion, but it is this: a growing, global desire in the midst of the terrible unknown of the pandemic to know how to speak to God.

In the early 5th century, a wealthy young widow named Proba wrote to Bishop Augustine. Despite her means, she was a refugee in North Africa following the sacking of her hometown, Rome. It was in the midst of uncertainty and suffering that she asked Augustine, perhaps somewhat anxiously, the same question that so many are asking now: "How do I pray?" Augustine responds with an exploration of prayer. He begins with her question:

but also with what he believes prompts it, something that he describes as a holy anxiety inspired by God to lead Proba to God. Prayer can spring from anxiety, suffering's rich ground for prayer. And when it's directed at the living God, it becomes something that, even in the middle of chaos, can help set a course to something sure.

In his letter, Augustine encourages Proba to pray to God for a happy life. But of course, by that, he opens the door wide to what constitutes happiness, redefining it in terms of eternity and the gift that God offers of peace, the kind of peace that only his safety can bring. This slices through all the circuitry of our anxiety like a paddle slipping into water.

And these are anxious times. Global rates of infection are on the rise, restrictions ease in some places and tighten in others. We keep our physical distance while using all available means to connect with one another. And it would seem, if our online searches are any indication, that we desire connection not only to one another but to God as well. In kayaking, I'm learning how to navigate something that I don't understand.

I don't know how the water moves or when the wind will change. The tide comes in and out and might carry me with it were it not for my paddle. A paddle doesn't change the water or the wind or remove the dangers they might bring, but it is useful, necessary even for navigating them. Prayer is a bit like that. It doesn't ignore difficulty and danger, but engages with it. It can spring from it.

It isn't avoidance of the hard things, but a helpful, and I believe necessary, first step through them. And a prayer directed to God in anxiety, in suffering, in any kind of trial, is the stroke of a paddle towards shore, towards safety, and ultimately, towards rest. Hey, I hope you liked Laurel's piece. She sounds to me like someone from This American Life, don't you reckon?

She'll be embarrassed I said that. We're working on the next season: a pornography, how the Bible came together, mental health, climate change, and much more. But in the meantime, I'm going to invite a few other friends to join me for some of these singles. And I'm going to offer some readings as well from my forthcoming book, which is basically a century-by-century history of the church for people who don't go to church.

Anyway, look out for all that in the coming weeks. Wherever you are, I know I've got a bunch of listeners in Ireland, Hong Kong, the US, as well as Australia. I hope you're keeping safe. See ya. You've been listening to the Eternity Podcast Network.