Dwain Northey

It’s Sunday, which means at some point someone is going to tell me to “have a blessed day” or “I’ll pray for you.”

And every time it happens, I have the same reaction: thank you, I think?

I know it’s meant kindly. I know most people who say it are sincere. They’re wishing me well in the language that makes sense to them. But if I’m being honest, I never quite know what I’m supposed to do with it.

Maybe that makes me a heathen.

When someone asks if I pray, the answer rattling around in my head is usually, “I talk to myself, but I don’t expect answers.”

That’s probably the closest thing I have to prayer.

I spend plenty of time having conversations in my own head. I argue with myself. I analyze things to death. I replay conversations from ten years ago at three in the morning. I imagine alternate outcomes to events that are long over and done with. If there were an Olympic event for overthinking, I’d be standing on the podium.

But I don’t expect a voice to answer back.

I don’t expect divine guidance to arrive in a beam of heavenly customer service.

And if I eventually come up with a solution to a problem, my first thought isn’t that an omnipotent creator of the universe just slipped me a note.

My first thought is usually, “Well, after obsessing over this for three weeks, I finally figured something out.”

I suppose that’s where I land these days—somewhere in the agnostic neighborhood, with one foot drifting toward atheism.

I don’t know.

And unlike a lot of people, I’m comfortable saying I don’t know.

Maybe there’s something bigger than us. Maybe there isn’t.

Maybe there is some grand architect of the cosmos. Maybe the universe is simply the result of physics, probability, and an absurd amount of time.

The truth is that nobody knows for certain.

What fascinates me is how confidently people speak about things that are, by definition, unknowable.

Some people talk about God as if they have Him on speed dial.

They’ll tell you exactly what He wants, who He approves of, who He disapproves of, which political candidates He likes, which football teams He blesses, and apparently which parking spaces He reserves.

Meanwhile I’m over here wondering what to have for lunch.

The older I get, the more suspicious I become of certainty.

The universe is unimaginably large. We are riding a rock through space around an average star in one galaxy among billions. We understand only a fraction of how reality works.

Yet somehow people are absolutely positive they know the intentions of the creator of all existence.

That’s a confidence level I can’t even muster when choosing a streaming show.

So when someone says they’ll pray for me, I genuinely appreciate the goodwill behind it.

They’re expressing care in the framework they understand.

But for me, prayer looks a lot more like reflection.

It’s sitting quietly with my thoughts.

It’s wrestling with questions.

It’s examining my own actions and motivations.

It’s trying to be a decent human being because it’s the right thing to do, not because I’m worried about a cosmic performance review.

Maybe that’s faith.

Maybe it’s skepticism.

Maybe it’s just being a Gen X kid who grew up questioning everything and never quite stopped.

Whatever label applies, I find more comfort in questions than answers.

I don’t need certainty.

I don’t need to believe that every good outcome was divinely arranged or that every bad outcome is part of some master plan.

Sometimes life is beautiful.

Sometimes life is cruel.

Most of the time it’s complicated.

And when I sit alone talking to myself, trying to make sense of it all, I don’t expect answers from the heavens.

I’m just trying to understand the world, one internal conversation at a time.

If God is listening, that’s fine.

But I suspect most of the answers I’ve ever found came from the same place they always have:

the messy, confused, stubborn little voice inside my own head.