Seeking the balance between prayer and the First Amendment

A few weeks ago I was at Marc's. A short older man was struggling, on his tiptoes, trying to reach those skinny glass jar candles in the Goya section, way over his head. "You need something?" I said, stepping in. Once again I thought to myself how much being awkward comes in handy. It had been on my mind a lot at the time, after seeing myself in a set of pics that confirmed for me for what seemed the millionth time how I look disproportionately enormous next to … anybody. "Yeah, I need a St. Joseph. All I know is, it's green. Just give me anything green, it'll do." I'm also just enough colorblind that this was a bit difficult — he can't reach and I can't tell, so we're sorting through all the saints up above the Sazon and the tortillas and rice. I make conversation: What's this for? Sick people, he says. My sister, she's got the cancer. Four-kind. Stage four? Yeah. Oh, I say. I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah. I'm going to light the candle and pray for her. I find one and hand it to him, right there in front of the frozen empanadas on sale. What's her name? He tells me. I write it on my arm. I will pray for her too, I tell him. Ahhh. Thank you. Thank you. Last week, a lady with purple hair and purple eyes sits behind me in Denny's. The waitress knows her. Girl, Jesus knows what you're going through. Just tell him. The Lord will help you. I know, I know, she says. Pray for me, she says, lifting those violet eyes as the waitress holds her hands and fills her coffee cup. My sister and I, we tell her how pretty she is, and ask her if there is anything we can do for her. She says just pray. We tell her OK. My sister tells her "you know, He really does hear. That's the only thing that kept me living when my son was killed. But I made it." When we leave I whisper: What's your name? I write it on my hand. I prayed for her on the way home, in the silence of my truck with the windows down. I don't consider myself a person of great faith. The things I used to think I knew I'm not sure I know any more but I do know I write names on my hands, on slips of paper that I stick to the side of my bookcase that you can only see from where I sit in my shed, and when you turn the fan on in the heat they look like a whole flock of butterflies taking wing. Nobody knows they are there but me and the Lord and no one needs to know. I've got prayers so old they don't get written down, they're carved into my heart muscle, I probably say them in my sleep and I can't tell you if they'll ever get answered. Why do I pray them, then? I don't know. Because they're not answered yet? It is a fair question — beyond fair — to ask me if I believe in the power of prayer, and I guess the answer is yes. Yet I don't agree with the recent Supreme Court ruling that a Washington state school district violated the First Amendment rights of its former football coach, suspended for praying on the field after every game. I've read and read on this case, and I still can't figure out how his right to pray was infringed in any way. I know he says he's Christian, of the same faith as I, so I guess we both read from the book of Matthew that tells us when we pray to not to make a big fuss about it, to just go on about our business in private or otherwise people will for sure know we're just doing it for attention. In fact, I saw a photo of him posing in front of the Supreme Court, taking a knee with a football, right after the ruling came down. Suddenly this country forgot that taking a knee about moral convictions makes them mad. It's a strange world out here. I live and breathe by the First Amendment, for me and for you, but this wasn't about that. This was all about performance. I'm just going to keep going, writing prayers on my skin and whispering names to God. Contact Chronicle-Telegram columnist Rini Jeffers at rinijeffers@gmail.com.