Don’t let us get sick (part 2)

November 17th, 2024

Many a time I shivered in church. Sometimes from boredom, sometimes from incredulity, sometimes from coldness. Once while hearing a song, a patriotic anthem in the darkness of the late 1980s. Never during the prayer.

Shivers went down my spine and goosebumps started from the very first pick of the string in that song. I don't think I consciously knew the song just yet at that moment, but my emotions were heightened without me knowing. Then the wetness in my eyes appeared as well. No tears, though. I was in a public place, and there is no crying on a half-empty train speeding through the dark-shadowed evening. Or maybe there is. I don't know — I might try that next time.

That itself was the next time. It has happened to me before. The same song, the same situation — being on the train, going home after visiting my niece and her parents, listening to the same particular radio station (and that radio station had to be very particular to have this song in the rotation)— with the shivers and goosebumps and hidden tears. It was a year ago or so. I could have easily looked it up since I wrote here about that experience right after it happened. But I won’t look it up. That knowledge will not give me anything, except maybe a clearer understanding of the quantity of passed calendar days — and I don't want this information to be clear. Or rather, I don't want to be informed about it at all.

That is more than a song, it is a prayer. A tender prayer for strength and understanding and for a glimmer of hope. That prayer sent a shiver down my spine and hit me right through the conscious effort to be rational like no prayer ever before. Even I need a prayer occasionally, it seems. As long as it is gentle and tender and loving and truly from the heart prayer like this song.