Fake Prayer

“But dear God please give me some place,  no matter how small, but let me know it and keep it,” Flannery O’Connor writes in her journal on September 25. “If I am the one to wash the second step everyday, let me know it and let me wash it and let my heart overflow with love washing it.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about that prayer lately. It’s a plea, really, for vocation, even if it’s just sweeping off a step. In my imagination, it’s a set of steps that lead to my church.

What a comfort, I think, to know what it is I’m supposed to do. To have God literally come to my front door and hand me a broom.

“Sweeping?” I’d say, holding the door open for Him. “Great. I’m on it. How about some coffee, first?” He’d leave the broom on our front stoop, and come in.

I’d tell him how relieved I am to know sweeping is all I’d have to do from now on. We’d sit across from each other, cupping our mugs that rested on the table Jesse built for me – a present for earning my MFA.

“I mean, I love to write,” I’d confess, “but good Lord I hate what comes after.”

He’d nod; maybe take a sip of His coffee.

“The promoting, worrying about the reviews on Amazon, trying to explain what the book is about or what my platform is. God, I don’t even know what my books are about. Do you know?”

I think there’d be silence after that and so I’d say, “That’s why I’m so glad  you gave me this broom so I don’t have to worry about this shit anymore. Oh, sorry. I probably shouldn’t swear in front of you. But God, you knew I thought it anyway, so what’s the difference? Besides, didn’t you make the word up in the first place?

“And anyway, I just need to focus on my sweeping now. No more social media and comparing myself to what everyone else is doing. No more asking bookstores if I can please come to their store to read my book. Do you know I don’t even want to go to AWP? Like, ever?”

I’d stand up and walk to the kitchen to get the coffee pot and refill our mugs.

“I bet Flannery O’Connor didn’t have to worry about AWP. Or hashtags.”

At this point, I think God would compliment my coffee, because I make excellent coffee. “Well, maybe I could make coffee for people after I swept the church stairs,” I’d say. “But not in a coffee shop because I’m not a very nice person.”

I’d tell Him about this coffeeshop in Ypsilanti, where I often go during the week to get a cup of coffee on a lunch break. “That’s the dream,” I’d tell Him, “to not only work near a good coffeeshop, but have time in the day to go and get a coffee; maybe say hello to a few friendly strangers that eventually I’ll call my friends.”

I’d tell Him about the woman who I’m pretty sure is the owner, and who knows me by name. Her little girl goes to one of the schools I work in.

“That’s the lady who tells stories,” the woman told me her daughter said one day when I walked in.

“Something about this woman’s work helps me do mine,” I’d contemplate. “Something about a quick conversation about our work and our daughters makes me happy. She’s doing something creative and difficult, and maybe I can keep at it, too.

“God, I’m talking your ear off, aren’t I? Well, my church only has like, ten steps. It shouldn’t take too long, but do you know The True Story of the Three Little Pigs where the wolf proclaims he’s innocent; that he actually had a cold and the only reason he was at the pigs’ house was because he needed some sugar to bake a cake for his grandma? It was his sneezing that blew the houses down.

“I read that story to a couple of classes recently and one boy, I know you know which one, stood up from the carpet at the end where the wolf is in jail and asking for sugar, and with his fists clenched, shouted, ‘He’s innocent! He’s innocent! He shouldn’t be in prison!’

“I know you know his mom’s situation, Lord. All I could do is close the book so he wouldn’t see the wolf behind bars and tell him that I agree – the wolf is innocent.

“We read a poem about spring the other day, this boy’s class and I. He was in a grumpy mood when he walked into the library, banging lockers with his fists and feet, and scowling. I’ve known this boy for two and a half years. He’s always been boisterous and rambunctious, but not like this. It’s hard to see him like this, but we read the poem and I said we were going outside to hunt for spring because that’s what you have to do in Michigan – hunt of that green growth. He stood up again, smiling this time. ‘I remember! I remember when we did that with you last year! And we looked for buds and we found grass and heard birds.” He stopped and looked at the ceiling, still smiling. ‘And the sun was shining,’  he ended, making eye contact with me. He remembered correctly. The day was frigid, but the sun was out, and it felt so good, so we stayed outside longer than we probably should’ve; scrambling to pick a book and rushing to get it checked out once we returned from the sun’s shine.

“I’m not saying I did anything for this kid. Except it was nice to see him smile and remember spring, and when he talked about the wolf, it was good to pay witness to as much as he could let out. I hope letting it out helped him, or will help him as he grows. I hope the innocence of the wolf will stay with him.

“Earlier this week another little boy pulled on my dress asking me if he could please get a book from the return bin. I told him yes, and he dug up a thick book of fairy tales. He held the book like he was hugging it. ‘Thank you, Mrs. Feyen,’ this Kindergartener said as though I’d let him have recess all day for the rest of the school year. ‘Mrs. D. reads us all our stories and she didn’t get to this one yet.’

“‘I do,’ she told me. ‘I read every single book.'”

“The little boy smiled and nodded and then went to find a spot to read, while his teacher and I watched him.

“‘He’s gonna get himself out of whatever bad situation he’s in,’ his teacher said to me. “He’s gonna make it.’

“She didn’t say it like she’d hoped this was true. The way she said it, it had already happened. It was a fact. This boy reading fairy tales about wolves and dragons and poison apples is going to be OK.”

Something tells me God wouldn’t have all that much to say during this visit. Maybe he brought the broom over so I’d let Him in, and not because He really thought I’d use it. Like I’d ever sweep. I think the last time I did, I was seven and pretending to be Cinderella.

I bet Flannery O’Connor didn’t really mean that when she was praying. Maybe she was wrestling with Wise Blood, or The Violent Bear It Away and wondering what the point was to even write. Maybe she was considering what the point of a story is in the first place.

I bet that’s when she asked for a broom, and I bet that’s when God showed up with one. I bet she left it in the yard with the peacocks and the two of them went inside. I bet she offered Him something stronger than coffee. She was Southern and she was friends with Walker Percy so my guess is it wasn’t Peet’s Major Dickinson’s Blend.

She’d get to talking and I bet without realizing it she’d start to tell him a story or three about what she observes in this world that’s beautiful and horrifying and usually it’s both at the same time and she doesn’t know what to do with this kind of disorder except to write it down, and share it with others so she doesn’t have to bear it all by herself.

Some kind of broken communion.

I bet she never picked up that broom.