I’ve been thinking about prayer and about prayerlessness. Concurrent to this, I have been watching a series called Alone. The series consists of people being dropped into some kind of far off wilderness, often the Canadian north, and left to fend for themselves. They are allowed a small number of items and, at any given time, they can radio the series producers, but only with the message that they want to call it quits. Whoever lasts the longest wins a pot of gold or some pile of money.
Those who know me would, perhaps, note that such a survivalist show is possibly the furthest thing from my particular nature. I can make sense of why people like camping, but I still don’t know why people would choose to do such a thing. If I somehow became a contestant on a show like Alone I would maybe wait a minute or so after being dropped off to grab the radio and tell the producers that I am, in the parlance of the show, “tapping out.” I might congratulate myself that I made it easier on the show staff as they had to make one less trip.
Nevertheless, I have been intrigued by the show. It is a kind of spectacle to watch people gleefully celebrate catching a mouse so that they have at least some food. It is compelling to see how knowledgable and industrious people can be; how amazing some people are at building shelters, for example.
I have been wondering, though, about the prayerlessness. Maybe it is in a season I have not seen yet, but, in both the American and the British episodes I have watched, thus far there has been virtually no prayer. I would have thought that people would be more likely to lift up a prayer when they were in the middle of nowhere, all on their own. I have considered that, maybe, the cameras have replaced God. The contestants have agreed to film most of what they do and so they are always talking to the camera, interacting with some imagined audience. There is the possibility that this kind of ever-present sense of being filmed, recorded and watched, the idea that your life is lived before an audience is the closest thing to awareness of the transcendent.
Is this the kind of thing that has replaced God? Does social media work this way, giving some people a sense that they are always being watched, noticed, listened to and judged?
There is not an absence of spirituality on the show. Multiple contestants become emotionally distraught at having to kill and eat a squirrel. There are many expressions of gratitude for the land or for nature, many expressions of awe or humility. Still though, little prayer. It gets me to thinking about the meaning of the series title, “Alone.” Maybe it refers to more than wilderness and survival.
I have the Mavis Staples song in my head now, “You’re not alone. I’m with you. I’m lonely, too.” What might it mean for hopeful faith to offer the reminder that we are, indeed, not alone, that God has chosen to not be God without humanity?
And, I recall the Douglas Coupland book Life After God. It is a kind of urban version of Alone, snippets and vignettes of an urban life post religion and faith. It offers a sort of instruction in how we might hear cries for the transcendent in a culture apparently post-religious faith.
Below is a page from almost the very end of the book and then some words from the dust jacket.
Coupland wrote these words 20 years ago, but decades later, they sound over a show like Alone and in a culture that often seems to try to make its way without a prayer.
This is one of my favorite shows and I have not missed one since it began...both the American version and the Australian one....I think I remember only one person actually praying and I can't remember who it was. You are right. Either the production company cuts this out of the shows or these folks don't pray or do it silently under covers when they go to bed. No matter which way, it certainly brings up the points you are making. Thanks for another thoughtful post.