by Chloe Koffas, Contributor
On a trip to Boise, Idaho during the closing days of this past summer, my family and I were walking the streets of a century-old neighborhood where the last Lost Generation once walked. The leaves on the trees were showing off the last of their shades of green; soon enough they’d be busy turning crimson and gold before lazily floating onto sidewalks. Everywhere we went in the city that day, from late morning until late afternoon, we would pass by this man, riding with his Labrador in a vintage Scout, crisscrossing from one enjoyable weekend excursion to another. It looked like this dog had a pretty great life – we saw him splashing in the Boise River and running on soft grass in an open field, contentedly soaking up warm sun on his golden fur.
When dusk was heading our way, the smell of barbecue came wafting down the street, past charming storefronts … a soda fountain, a bakery, a barber shop. The warm breezes of the summer day gave way to the coolness of the evening air. Once again, we saw this man and his dog and I wondered if there was some cosmic reason why we kept crossing paths. The man had parked his Scout against the curb to go order dinner and to meet up with friends at what looked like a dog-friendly restaurant where he was going to eat outside.
Meanwhile, the dog waited in the car, and his face reflected an intense sorrow, his eyes betraying how isolated he felt — like he feared his owner had abandoned him. This was a perfect example of how time is relative. This dog only had to wait five minutes before his owner came back to get him, to put down a bowl of cool water for him, to feed him the delicious scraps that would be coming from the table, but this dog clearly felt so alone for those five minutes. This reminded me of myself and how quickly I get discouraged when I have to wait for something to happen and I don’t know what is around the corner – it reminded me of when I pray and I don’t yet hear an answer, and I fill the uneasy silence with the words,
“Are you there, God?”
Meanwhile, God has only just briefly left me in the passenger seat, and he has gone to place an order for exactly what I have just asked him. The whole time the food is on the grill, I am panicking. And then there’s the cook himself – who just went and took a smoke break which is holding everything up. In other words, there are the physics of things, of how it takes time for things to fall into place, and then there is the issue of how much people involved will do their part, or more theologically, you might call it free will. That doesn’t mean the order wasn’t placed, that the prayer wasn’t heard. In fact, the whole time God is arranging things – getting water for me to drink, calling friends who will circle the table so we can share a meal together. Yet, I find myself overwhelmed with sorrow because of my own short-sightedness.
“Are You There, God?” Has been a defining question of Generation X. This is, in part, because we were born in a Crisis Era, and this era has relentlessly continued on with each decade of our lives. 2016 is coming to an end, and an entire generation has never lived one day without a Crisis Era overshadowing our existence and darkening our already cynical outlook. We feel tired, we are frustrated for good reason.
While I have seen countless prayers get answered, in my life and in other’s, in extraordinary and utterly unexpected ways, there exists this handful of my prayers that don’t get answered. Maybe because an answer has come but it wasn’t the answer I was looking for. It may be that it is all ultimately for something much bigger and better than my finite mind can yet grasp. There were things I asked God for out of youthful naivety that now I’m so glad were never given to me. And while I cannot, and should not, boil down a complex issue of why prayers go unanswered into a simple metaphor of a dog in a car, I can tell you that if the dog sitting there on that summer evening would’ve just looked out past his own sorrow, just 20 more feet, he would’ve seen his owner looking back at him. If only he would’ve looked a little further down the street, he would have seen friends coming so they could all circle the table.
As if God has forgotten, as if God could forget.
Summer seems so distant now. The leaves are just about done falling from the trees, and there is a coldness that comes at night, even as the sun rises, that makes it hard to get up in the morning. There is this handful of prayers that I keep waiting to be answered, and while time is relative, a lifetime is a long time to wait by anyone’s definition. Each day now, I am putting up a few more Christmas decorations. A new year will begin, and that handful of prayers may still go unanswered. I keep waiting though, and when I wake up from some unsettling dream leaving me anxious about this world, and my life, and the future of my generation, I’ll wait for that voice to come through the last of the rustling leaves, words that hang on the empty branches outside my frosted window. That simple response…
“I’m here.”
Please connect with Chloe on her blog, Light From A Pixel, and on Twitter and Facebook.