The following is a selection from The Brothers K by David James Duncan I thought was interesting. The four teenage brothers, who represent a wide array of religouis beliefs, talk about their Papa, who’s trying to make a comeback in professional baseball after an injury, as they get ready for bed. Everett is the atheistic American equivalent to Ivan from The Brothers Karamazov.
“Well,” Everett began, “I warned you it’s stupid. But the other night, after Freddy’s little prayer, I got to thinking about how easy my life is compared to Papa’s. Then I started thinking what a strange notion it is that Jesus supposedly got strung up on a cross to save zillions of other people – as if his one life, in exchange for zillions, was some kind of even trade… It didn’t make much sense to me, really,” Everett said, “but what I thought was: What the hell. If that’s how things actually work, why not propose a similar swap – on a much smaller scale, of course – to help Papa out. Why not ask God, if He exists, to let me do for Papa what Jesus supposedly did for everybody on earth. Why not ask to trade some of my good luck for some of Papa’s bad, just to get his life back on track.”
“That’s not stupid at all,” Peter said.
“I don’t think so either,” I agreed.
“Me neither,” Irwin said. “Except… I don’t quite get it. Yet.”
“The way I see it,” Everett said, “God either made everything there is, Satan included, or He’s nothing. He’s in charge of all of it, or none of it. So what I was thinking about prayer – especially ours lately – was that when people turn it into begging, when they use it to try to blackmail God into giving them nothing but miracles and money and new cars and babies and marriages and all that, what they’re really asking Him is to remake, or even unmake, what He’s already made… so I was gonna propose to God, if there is one, not that He change His will, not that He remake or unmake the life he gave Papa, but just that He hand me enough of the rotten part of Papa’s life, and Papa enough of the good part of mine, to get him back out on the ballfield.”
“Why do you say your prayer was stupid?”
“It’s not the prayer that was stupid,” Everett muttered. “It’s praying to someone who isn’t there that’s stupid.”
“But He is there!” Irwin bellowed.
“Whisper, you moron!”
“But He is.”
“Then you do it,” Everett said. “It’s not too late. You’re the big believer, Irwin. Why don’t you ask God to put Papa’s bad luck on you and your good luck on him. Go ahead! Do it up good! And we’ll see how much it changes anything.”
“I’ll do it,” I said.
“Me too!” Irwin cried.
“Then let’s everybody do it,” Peter said, laughing at the look of disgust on Everett’s face. “That way, if it works, we’ll spread the rotten luck over a wider area.”