I recently finished reading Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road.” There is no way I could handle the movie, but the Pulitzer-prize winning horror novel was unforgettable.
There’s a moment, about halfway through, when the father and son–starving and near death–find an underground bunker fully stocked with food. They stop for a few days to rest, wash and eat.
The son tells his father that they should thank the people who left them this food. Father and son both know those people are surely dead. And so, the son prays. It’s the only prayer in the book, and I can’t read it without crying:
“Dear people, thank you for all this food and stuff. We know that you saved it for yourself and if you were here we wouldn’t eat it no matter how hungry we were and we’re sorry that you didn’t get to eat it and we hope that you’re safe in heaven with God.”
Prayers just don’t get much better than that.
