A prayer for Owen Meany Read Online Free PDF Page B

would
complain about the kneeling, which was new to me-not to mention the abundance
of litanies and recited creeds in the Episcopal service-Owen would tell me that
I knew nothing. Not only did Catholics kneel and mutter litanies and creeds
without ceasing, but they ritualized any hope of contact with God to such an
extent that Owen felt they'd interfered with his ability to pray-to talk to God
DIRECTLY, as Owen put it. And then there was confession! Here I was complaining
about some simple kneeling, but what did I know about confessing my sins? Owen
said the pressure to confess-as a Catholic-was so great that he'd often made
things up in order to be forgiven for them.
    "But that's crazy!" I said. Owen agreed. And what was
the cause of the falling out between the Catholics and Mr. Meany? I always
asked. Owen never told me. The damage was irreparable, he would repeat; he
would refer only to the UNSPEAKABLE OUTRAGE. Perhaps my unhappiness at having traded
the Congregational Church for the Episcopal-in combination with Owen's
satisfaction at having ESCAPED the Catholics-contributed to my pleasure in our
game of lifting Owen Meany up in the air. It occurs to me now that we were all
guilty of thinking of Owen as existing only for our entertainment; but hi my
case- especially, in the Episcopal Church-I think I was also guilty of envying
him. I believe my participation in abusing him in Sunday school was faintly
hostile and inspired by the greatest difference between us: he believed more
than I did, and although I was always aware of this, I was most aware in
church. I disliked the Episcopalians because they appeared to believe more-or
in more things-than the Congregationalists believed; and because I believed
very little, I had been more comfortable with the Congregationalists, who
demanded a minimum of participation from worshipers. Owen disliked the
Episcopalians, too, but he disliked them far less than he had disliked the
Catholics; in his opinion, both of them believed less than he believed-but the
Catholics had interfered with Owen's beliefs and practices more. He was my best
friend, and with our best friends we overlook many differences; but it wasn't
until we found ourselves attending the same Sunday school, and the same church,
that I was forced to accept that my best friend's religious faith was more
certain (if not always more dogmatic) than anything I heard in either the
Congregational or the Episcopal Church. I don't remember Sunday school in the Congregational
Church at all-although my mother claimed that this was always an occasion
whereat I ate a lot, both in Sunday school and at various parish-house
functions. I vaguely remember the cider and the cookies; but I remember
emphatically-with a crisp, winter-day brightness-the white clapboard church,
the black steeple clock, and the services that were always held on the second
floor in an informal, well-lit, meetinghouse atmosphere. You could look out the
tall windows at the branches of the towering trees. By comparison, the
Episcopal services were conducted in a gloomy, basement atmosphere. It was a
stone church, and there was a ground-floor or even underground mustiness to the
place, which was overcrowded with dark wood bric-a-brac, somber with dull gold
organ pipes, garish with confused configurations of stained glass-through which
not a single branch of a tree was visible. When I complained about church, I
complained about the usual things a kid complains about: the claustrophobia,
the boredom. But Owen complained religiously. "A PERSON'S FAITH GOES AT
ITS OWN PACE," Owen Meany said. "THE TROUBLE WITH CHURCH IS THE
SERVICE. A SERVICE IS CONDUCTED FOR A MASS AUDIENCE. JUST WHEN I START TO LIKE
THE HYMN, EVERYONE PLOPS DOWN TO PRAY. JUST WHEN I START TO HEAR THE PRAYER,
EVERYONE POPS UP TO SING. AND WHAT DOES THE STUPID SERMON HAVE TO DO WITH GOD?
WHO KNOWS WHAT GOD THINKS OF CURRENT EVENTS? WHO CARES?"
    To these