What I have is an illness of the brain chemistry. When the illness is not kept under control by medication it can feel as if there are demons within me. In 15% of people with this illness those demons lead them to either take their own lives or act in ways that have fatal consequences.
I was seeing my doctor last week , as I do every week, and I asked her how I could get an edge on the disease. My doctor is a Christian and she knows I am an atheist. I guess she is also in a position where she has to be careful not impose her personal beliefs on me.
She asked me if I really wanted to know. I said I did. She asked me again, if I really,really wanted to know. I insisted that I did. She said that I needed to put my life in the hands of Christ.
The following day it was pouring with rain. It was very dark. I walked into a church at the top of the street I had lived in for a decade. It was empty, I walked up the center aisle and sat down on a pew. I sat quietly waiting for Christ to suddenly appear. As far as I could see he did not. I knelt down and did something I have not done for forty years: I prayed. I felt nothing.
I don't know what I was expecting but I am glad I did it. It felt good to give it a go, to look an issue differently. To not be fixed in one point of view. Sitting & then kneeling in a church and praying to an entity that may or may not exist did me no harm at all. Just as considering the viewpoint of AGW deniers does me no harm even if the science indicates that they are wrong.
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