The Facebook group Daily Prayer/Reflective Time for the Gulf of Mexico has only 31 members, and one of them is a Facebook friend--a dear, valued friend, both on Facebook and in real life.
This group is "dedicated to the idea that daily prayer and/or reflection can help bring about a solution to the environmental disasters this beautiful region faces."
My friend is kind, gentle, caring, tolerant, intelligent, and funny. Generally, she's a rational person.
She's a good mother and politically liberal. She's environmentally conscious. She supports gay rights. We share a love of dogs, cats, art, travel, and gardening. Our tastes in books, music, TV, and movies are pretty much identical. We support many of the same causes.
In fact, the only area of our lives where we seem to have a major disagreement is religion. She embraces it; I reject it. Her belief in God is deep and unshakable; mine is so shallow as to be virtually nonexistent and extremely skeptical.
And, yet, we like each other. A lot.
We don't talk much about her belief and my disbelief. Although I've often wondered how someone so smart, so reflective, and typically much more rational than so many of my other friends, could believe something as irrational as Christianity, albeit a liberal, "my God is a loving God," Cafeteria Christian who picks-and-chooses which Bible verses she sees as allegorical, historical, or God's actual instructions on how to live her life (which, surprisingly, almost always coincide perfectly with her own personal, non-religious convictions and philosophy).
But I never ask the question. Nor do I ask what kind of solutions for the Gulf environmental disaster have resulted from her daily prayers. And I probably never will ask either question. Because this friend is one friend not easily dismissed and defriended on Facebook.
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