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When You Pray, Move Your Feet
I do not always understand proverbs and sayings the way most people do. I seem to attack them from different angles. This particular proverb bounces around my brain, pulling up thoughts, dead end paragraphs, and old memories. It brings to mind bits and pieces of inspirational quotes and Bible verses and sermons and Dorothy Day.
I connect this saying to West Wing quotes and letters written by former communists and books by people thrown out of political conventions who avoid arrest by saying they aren’t protesters, they are prophets. It stirs up memories of arguments with my father over welfare and the American dream.
When I see the words “When you pray, move your feet” my brain remembers the quotes "Oh Lord, give me health and strength. We'll steal the rest”, and “...What we Christians lack is a holy rage...the ability to rage when justice lies prostate in the streets”
After a few days of letting this proverb dance around in my brain and really thinking about what I was going to write. I found myself wishing that the proverb meant vastly different things than what everyone has seemed to agree on. I wished that it was about worshiping God in not just prayer, but in how you lived your life. That it could be about actually reflecting your beliefs in your actions. I found myself wishing that it was about dancing and jumping and loving and believing with your whole being.
After wishing, thinking, and remembering for most of this week, I came to a few conclusions. One was that other people’s meanings did not matter. It is important to know what they mean, but it’s just as important that I take away something personally relevant from the proverb.
The most important conclusion I reached was that it had been entirely too long since I had truly examined my actions against what I believe social justice to be and what I believe Jesus taught.
I do think that it is important to remember that dreams take hard work, that hope without effort does not always equal change. To whip out the Ghandi: You need to “be the change you wish to see in the world”
But for me, especially in these last few days, it is much more important to make sure that my actions reflect my beliefs.
That was my entry for week 1 of LJ Idol. I hope you enjoyed it and when it is time for voting, I'll be posting a link to the poll. I hope you'll vote for me :)