As I was re-reading David Foster Wallace online, I received a forwarded email. It was from an aunt whose emails usually contain blinking/singing American flags and/or truisms that would have been cross-stitched on a pillow a generation ago. DFW would have loved her. The emails implicitly assume that I voted for Bush in both cycles because of his pro-whatever and anti-whatevers. (”He’s a good man, you know.”) They assume that I am shocked by the same things that apparently shock good people everywhere: gay marriage, skepticism about the literal truth of the Bible, and Those Unpatriotic Ones Who Don’t Support the Troops. Unless I am feeling particularly smug, I delete these emails without reading.
But this time I read the email, and I learned that the extended family is having a special fast for my cousin’s dying baby. A quick introduction for the uninitiated: a fast is a period in which people don’t eat or drink. It’s done as an offering to God, a offer to transact. I will briefly starve myself, offer my body’s primal needs up in return for what I want-need-desire from God. It’s generally reserved for something important. I spent much of my youth in a prayer and fasting cycle, trying to wail my (now dead) mother into good health. It’s what Mormons do. They talk about the process the way other people might talk about putting money in savings — it’s serious but commonplace. Probably a lot of other fundamentalist-type denominations do the same too. I don’t know. Maybe a group fast is just a communal prayer with your whole bodies.
It’s not that I don’t believe in God, because I think I do. But I just don’t think (or hope) that God does trades. After all, my mom did die, in a spectacularly ugly and drawn-out sort of death. As do many people. It happens. Plus, there is Africa. You can’t think about asking God for favors without thinking about Africa (as in, why would there be mass starvation, war, slavery in Africa if God could intervene?). The standard Mormon answer to this is — people have to feel the consequences of their choices, it’s a fallen world. These rationales look limp and weak, even on the page. Really, really, what are the chances that any God would change course because of a desperate trade offered by two young parents and their families? But not change course if the trade wasn’t offered? Perhaps I am just concerned about the efficiency of this whole process: we stop eating and hope that that the world will stand still, that nature will reverse course, that Superman will fly around the earth fast enough to disrupt time or cause and effect.
Parents have wept over more dead children than there are people alive today. Many of them were pious. Many were evil. Many of them prayed. Many of them cursed God. But what has stopped modern children from dying is not a supernatural force. It’s a systemic decision by scientists to stop looking up for relief, and start looking around them. Medical advances stem from scientific techniques established during the Enlightenment (observation over argument, sensual perception over faith and so on). My asthmatic son is alive because somebody figured out what chemicals would relax his overly tight bronchioles. The men and women who figure these things out were looking around at what was, and not what should have been, surrounding them. The noticed what they smelled, tasted, heard, touched, and saw, not what they yearned to feel.
But when there is no scientific cure, then the senses fail. When what you see is a tiny and frail body whimpering on an oscillator, bleeding out of every orifice, his eyes yellow, his lungs rotting in fungus, you can close your eyes. You don’t want to see. You don’t want to taste. You want oblivion. The senses are too sharp to bear. And you retreat into a hope that there is something out there, something you haven’t tasted or smelled, something out there that will do a little alchemy while your eyes are closed. And that when you open your eyes again, nature will have inexplicably moved in your direction.
And so my family fasts and prays.
DFW was a master recognizing and describing the actual day-in-day-out sights that most of us see, as opposed to the occasional extraordinary experiences that other writers prefer. The creepy plastic bags we carry tasteless soft bagels in, the professional smiles we walk by at the mall, and the vacant eyes of overweight, polyester-clad gamblers in a motel lobby in Reno. The reds and greens, and the unpleasantly fetid greens. His exquisite mind constantly composed a never-ending footnote to search for some reason to stay, and to keep his eyes open.
And I wonder, if perhaps, maybe, in some cases, it is better to retreat — away from our bodies, from what we perceive, and from the tangible world. To deny our bodies and pray in a circle. And shut our eyes, just so that they will be closed for a while. To rest.
Very thought provoking. Thanks for sharing.
wow.
This is an amazing essay.
I am thinking . . . lost in it actually . . . with nothing to add except thank you.
Welcome to the Greatwhatsit. It’s wonderful hearing a new voice.
Okay, now down to business: would you say that your (likely) belief in God is potentially as habitual as those who think it actually does something if pestered enough through prayer, fasting, and so on?
I ask because you spend much of your post suggesting reasons why prayer or fasting has been trumped by science; I don’t understand why this same Faith-killer hasn’t set its sights on your God-belief.
…prayer or fasting has been trumped by science;
Oops — should read, “have been trumped…”
Good question, Scotty. I would say that my belief in God has been examined and thrashed about enough for me to say that it is genuine. I think that this post is really partially about that fact–that even after I use every rational reason to not believe, I still do.
Also, I should add, I don’t really want to not believe. That isn’t why I believe, but I think that the final line of the piece indicates that there is something good in belief.
Admin: can I change the accidental name in # 5?
Within your cultural community, does anyone ever even dare to suggest the things you do when a fast is suggested? like, what does God get out of your denial and how would it change his mind? or, why would he save one baby and not another?
Thanks for your thoughtful musings, and also for weaving in DFW.
and wow, till I read your last comment and then re-read your conclusion, I didn’t realize you were talking about prayer there rather than suicide. I thought you were expressing some sort of understanding of DFW”s choice in such a hard world.
Answer to #7,#8. The piece, I hope, is empathetic to DFW’s choice–understanding that someone who sees too much may not want to exist anymore. But it suggests an alternative, which although perhaps not entirely rational, is a good, healthy alternative. So my suggestion is essentially, but rather weakly I suppose, that letting go of the rational mind at times is necessary.
I would suspect that my beliefs are unique in my faith community. Well, probably not. It’s a culture that encourages discussion of faith, but not of disbelief, and so I am cautious in my expressions because I want to remain a member of the community. And so are others. Especially at a moment like the one above.
3. I don’t understand why this same Faith-killer hasn’t set its sights on your God-belief?
I would bet that for most people that start down that road, it eventually comes to this. But letting go of the crazy stuff in any religion is an ongoing process. It starts by letting go of something obviously nuts, like racism. Over time, getting rid of the bad thing changes a person’s perspective, and from the new vantage point some other doctrine of the faith looks just as bad as the original issue that started the person down the path. So the honest believer cuts out a different tumor, changing her perspective again, and possibly leading to a new vantage point.
Also, Ginny, thanks for your DFW thoughts.
I had been tangentially aware of DFW for some time. His name comes up quite a bit if you read certain magazines, watch certain television shows, or listen to certain radio programs. But I had never bothered to actually read anything of his, in spite of his work’s prominence. Much of this has to do with the fact that I just don’t read nearly as much as I should. I have a few authors that I like to read, and I am working my way through their work, very slowly. It takes a lot of time, and there is a lot of ground to cover, so unless I get a strong recommendation, or unless an author’s particular subject grips me, I don’t often add new authors to the list.
But then something happens, like the passing of a DFW, that seems to demand that I take a real look at the author’s work. This leaves me wondering, what other authors are out there who, like DFW, represent major holes in my overall cultural literacy?
For contemporary authors, these days I am reading: Haruki Murakami, Cormac McCarthy, Neal Stephenson, Walter Kirn, Philip Roth, and Michael Chabon. I’m not really a serious, reader, so I read these guys for pleasure.
What other authors, if they were to pass tomorrow, would cause as much private shame as a DFW, for my never having read even a short story?
Um…Marilynne Robinson? Might as well put a woman on that list.
Don DeLillo?
Kazuo Ishiguro?
G, I love your point about DFW’s deep observation. That’s fairly close to prayer, at least how I see it. I wish “mindfulness” weren’t a word that’s been co-opted by suburban yoga classes and Whole Foods, because to me, prayer and mindfulness are very nearly the same.
I had read DFW quite a bit before his death, but I will tell you what really moved me post-death was that college commencement speech. Especially this:
Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship — be it JC or Allah, bet it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles — is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.
I mean, seriously, isn’t that amazing?
Yeah, that speech is really great, really challenging. It’s the kind of thing Rorty was talking about when he would say that we should get over the Bible and start reading texts that matter to how we live our lives now.
12. Thanks Rachel. Marilynne Robinson is added to the list (I ordered The Death of Adam, a book of her essays, hoping that shorter work will be the best entry point). DeLillo has so much work to consider. Where is the trail head?
13. Yes, Ginny, that bit is seriously amazing. Thanks. While I have been waiting for my copy of A Supposedly Funny Thing.. I have been going back and watching and reading interviews. The speech is great. Here is an interview with The Believer. And Here he is on Charlie Rose.
I’d recommend A White Bear’s post on DFW.
This is sort of about how a community’s rituals of fasting and prayer are one legitimate answer to the questions posed by modern life.
Ginny, thanks for such a thoughtful post and comments. I really hope you become a regular poster and commenter. The Whatsit could use some new vioces.
10: thanks for your explanation as well.
Hey Rogan,
I’m not sure this has the gravity of Marilynn Robinson or DFW, but have you read any George Saunders? After Jeremy introduced me a few years ago I’ve been a huge proselytizer on behalf of his short story “Sea Oak” which is actually online here. His essays are pretty great too.
21. Ok. I just Amazoned Civil War Land (I like short stories). Damn… free 2nd day delivery Amazon prime with one-click purchase turned on is going to be my financial ruin. I wonder who will win the race to get to my house? DFW, Robinson or Saunders. Start your engines! (inside money says it will be Robinson)