Divine intervention, on the road

A seriously theological discussion is taking place in the car, on the drive back to Bloomington from Chicago after Thanksgiving. It’s just me and my sisters in the car, a three-armed-power-team.

We all pray for different things. To a little girl, the stakes of losing her lunchbox is just as high as when I prayed for god to make sure Pluto’s eyes were okay, or for my Ogilvy job interview to go well. 

We talk about how we’ve prayed over the years, and to who. Both Ferret One and Ferret Two switch around specific gods, from Hindu ones to Abrahamic ones, just seeing what’s effective, who’s listening. I’m more a purist, I don’t know exactly what’s out there but I’m too awestruck to give them a name. I just spell god with a lower g letter and it/it’s pronouns. Don’t want to leave any room to gamble. 

The discussion isn’t more about if god exists, but if god listens. We agree it’s a serious thing to pray. I realized early on, probably from reading some Scripture, that if you only pray when you need something, it’s ineffective. So when I’m grateful, I tell whoever is out there that too. But that’s not enough. Whenever I do something good, particularly something selflessly hard for me, I document the feeling. See me? See me being good, being caring. And it doesn’t matter if the maxim is corrupt, as long as my action is good. All my life, I’ve been a utilitarian. I’m the one they call for the dirty work, always. 

Ferret Two is talking about her cat, Pluto’s infected eyes, the haunting image of which will forever be razor burned into my memory in Technicolor, when the object appears in front of us. The darkness had fallen over the empty cornfields a while ago and the highway was littered with the neon pinpricks of car headlights. 

My eyes widen, and I can’t hear it coming out of my mouth, but I swear I’m screaming my sister’s name.