Please Pray

Trying to find a “religious artifact” around New York City was quite difficult for me. Growing up, I was quite ignorant of religion. Not ignorant as in I didn’t care to know, it was simply because I just never got around to understand religion. Especially considering New York City to be a liberal place, any and all religious artifacts that I thought of was located in religious areas. Even if I found statues and paintings in a museum, I didn’t have the personal knowledge to speak about the artifact in depth.

I take the train everyday. There are always quirky and weird things written on the walls. However, when I saw this sign, I immediately thought of our American Religious Texts class. I thought this was perfect to combine both the “American” aspect of our class along with the religious perspective of New York City. Usually this sign hangs on the walls of MTA train carts without the “PRAY” part. When relating this to the “religious” aspect of New York City, you have to have a loose definition of ‘religious’. 

The dont's on this sign read no smoking, no littering, no loud music. However, when you think about it, these things are done religiously in New York City. According to the 2013 consensus, 16% of all New Yorkers are smokers which means that 1 of every 6 New Yorkeris a smoker. Although I have never smoked, I have seen how addictive it can get. When individuals face difficult situations in life, often times they turn to religion. But similarly, when many individuals face difficulties, they turn to a cigarette to ease their mind. It would seem that both fulfill the same activity although they are both completely two different things. 

The same goes for littering and music. Again, to understand the correlation of both of these symbols and religion, you must have a loose interpretation of both. The ‘no littering’ symbol, I thought of trash. Many people treat New York City as trash by doing it a disservice and littering. The same can be thought of for religion. There are some people who think of religion as trash, and those are the ones who do it a disservice by not giving it a chance. Others do a disservice to religion by criticizing it. As for the third symbol, just as people express themselves in their religious activities, people express themselves in their music. It’s an expression of identity. Where religion reads sacred texts, music lovers read music notes. 

However what surprised me the most is how much this relate to Falwell’s “Listen America!”. It’s almost as if this person was Falwell, telling us to go back to our ways. Whoever did this has the same idea as Falwell, that our nation is declining but we have the potential to be better through the use of prayers. I can almost see something desperate in this writing. I think the idea that this person had was our nation is at an all time low and we won’t be able to redeem ourselves. 

This related to the idea of “American”--the word that is in our class title--because this is where America is now. The people of America are in an invisible civil war. While some are advocating for religion to be more strict in New York City, others are advocating for religion to disappear from New York City. I’m interested to see in which direction our city progresses within the next few years.