Injured Armitage, wistful Servetus

[ETA: It seems the injured man is not Richard Armitage? That’s great, and I’m relieved. But the general reflection still stands, even without this particular example. Thanks — Servetus.]

Thanks to Bibiana who posted the link in comments to these pictures at TheOneRing.net. If you look through them, you’ll see someone who I’m sure is Richard Armitage. Ears, hairstyle, and build around the hips are all correct. As she hinted, it’s not the nose we’re using to recognize him in these photos — more like the ears. Not exactly smoldering with his back at this point, but a normal guy, walking around a car. I presume he’s been identified definitively as the injured man, somewhere, but feel free to enlighten me in the comments if he’s not. As is probably obvious from the last two posts, I don’t follow the Hobbit stuff very closely.

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When I was wishing for candid photos, this wasn’t what I meant! Though it’s sort of what I imagine he might wear in his free time on a lazy day — the wrinkled button-front shirt, especially. The right sleeve just a little too long, the palm of his hand caught up in it. Rubbing the index finger of his right hand and his thumb together. A sweet, vulnerable detail.

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So, yeah. I didn’t repost the picture here, but you all can see what’s on the presumed Mr. Armitage’s left foot — a walking cast / boot. Used for things like stress fractures, sprained ankles, severe tendonitis, and presumably some other troubling ailments. I hope it’s one of the less troubling things. I assume the neon-blue sole on the right shoe is not a style choice, but rather a build-up in order to minimize the ergonomic problems from walking with one hip a few centimeters higher than the other.

Servetus saw this picture and then experienced an intense twinge of sympathy. Poor Armitage. Working hard, so far away from home, and now injured. I’m sure they’re taking good care of him, of course, and he probably has fantastic health insurance, but —

And then, of course, the mind went racing.

Is the real Richard Armitage a wash-and-wear kind of guy who works through the pain? Does he have a choice? Does he like TLC and attention when he’s injured, or does he prefer not to indicate when it hurts, to keep a stiff upper lip and tough it out?

Whatever he needs when he’s injured, whether space or solicitude, I hope he receives it. And may he be healed along with all the sick.

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I pray a lot. A lot of prayers according to liturgies I learned as a child, a lot of intercessory prayers formulated ad hoc that express a specific intent.

It was the mode of responding to any life event taught to me in my childhood. Happy? Say a prayer of thanks. Angry? Say a prayer that your anger will be abated. Worried? Say a prayer to ask for G-d’s intervention. Afraid? Say a prayer to ask for G-d’s protection. Uncertain? Ask G-d for an answer to your question. Prayer was the primary means of showing concern I learned back then (along with practical support, of course, but we learned in Sunday School that human efforts are pointless without G-d’s willing support and so I believed, back then). My mother has a list of people she’s praying for taped to the dashboard in her car so she can get a few extra prayers in at stoplights. She makes weekly updates. Looking back, I often feel like the insistence that we should pray unceasingly got out of hand. The problems I experienced as a teenager with wondering where G-d is arose in response to a very specific, serious instance of intercessory prayer that didn’t end in the outcome I was praying for. Theologically, I understand the explanation that says that just because G-d doesn’t respond in the way you would like doesn’t mean a prayer has gone unanswered. Personally, it’s a bit hard to take, even if rationally, I know that we cannot all have what we desire, no matter how deep or sincere our petitions.

And then when I went to college, I learned that most people don’t think that it’s the chief end of man to glorify G-d, and that most people don’t express concern for each other by offering their prayers. And I learned that some people think it’s arrogant to pray for people who don’t want to be prayed for. What can it hurt? is the response of the pray-er; but it’s true that the idea that we can impose our wishes, no matter how positively we intend them, on the lives of others, is problematic in all kinds of ways. Better to wish for what other people wish for themselves, than to pray for our own wishes to be realized. I know my mother prays daily for me to see the error of my ways. I try to understand it as an expression of her love for me, even as I realize that, seen theologically, she fears for my eternal damnation — extra Jesum non salus est — or, that seen psychologically, it reflects an inability for her to accept my determination to differentiate, or perhaps, an incapacity to self-differentiate herself.

After a long period without ad hoc intercessory prayer, which mainstream Judaism in the U.S. uses relatively little of, I’ve come back to it. I’ve found I can’t live without it, but recent experiences have taught me that it’s more a psychological mechanism of surrendering to my powerlessness than a means of achieving anything. (Although my friend the Jesuit has been praying for my mother’s healing for the last two years, and while I am sure those are really prayers for me, I also think that they have helped my mother concretely. It’s inconceivable to me that the change in her health could have been so drastic simply due to treatment.) I’ve returned to intercessions with a great deal more vagueness and a great deal more “thy will be done” for myself, and a great deal more generality when I am making them for others. Sometimes I pray for people without telling them — if I know for certain they wouldn’t mind. Sometimes I just say, “I’ll keep you in my thoughts,” but when I say that I really mean that I am praying for them, and I think people who know me realize that. If it’s someone I know is not religious, and I think they might not appreciate being prayed for, though, I say, “May I pray for you?” Because I struggled to self-differentiate myself and don’t want anyone to feel under pressure on that account. Because I don’t want to pray for anyone the way my mother prays for me.

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Several months ago a fellow fan and friend (I think she’s a friend now — you know who you are — after you read this you can revoke the social contract if you want) asked me whether I prayed for Richard Armitage.

The answer is yes. As of this writing, for a few weeks shy of two years.

(Which raises the question of why his foot is injured!)

I added him to my list, without much thought, sometime during the second week of Armitagemania. I started off praying for him with the same prayer that I say for myself and my family members and close friends, a prayer I’ve been saying since I was little girl, to thank G-d for bringing us to a new day and asking G-d to keep us safe from danger and to bless us by aiding us to act righteously. Later I started asking G-d, if it be G-d’s will, to watch out for Richard Armitage’s health and to bless his endeavors.

I felt a bit queasy about it when I sensed the urge to add him to my intercessions, and felt even stranger, more than a year later, when I felt compelled to admit that I was doing so. My friend told me that at least two groups of people are praying novenas for the cast of The Hobbit, though, and that she knows other people who pray for specific actors.

Admittedly, something about it seems frivolous. As a Jew, I pray daily for a number of divine actions and hoped for occurrences (though, in case you’re curious, I don’t pray for the destruction of heretics — being named after a notorious heretic myself — nor for the restoration of animal sacrifices), and I pray on the Sabbath for things like the stability of our government and blessings upon our leaders, but I, too, wonder if I shouldn’t be praying specific intercessory prayers for the preservation, righteousness, and successes of people who are more important in a cosmic sense than Richard Armitage. Even if I note that Armitage has gone a long distance toward repairing my personal universe and those of a lot of people I know, and even if I assume that G-d has my general good wishes for people who are engaged more directly in tikkun olam in mind, there’s that problem.

Then there’s the issue of whether Richard Armitage wishes himself prayed for. The issue is not — and this is important — whether Armitage wishes he hadn’t injured himself, or hopes for a speedy recovery. Moreover, the issue is not how he would respond publicly were he to know that I, or other people, were praying for him: since it doesn’t involve underpants or pictures of us in bikinis with our phone numbers scrawled over them, I’m sure he’d be unfailingly polite no matter what he thought. The question is, rather, whether it’s legitimate out of ethical concerns to take the position of the other in this particular way. Judaism tends to put the Golden Rule in an interesting way: not “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” or in the Christian formulation, “love your neighbor as yourself” (which admittedly also appears in the Old Testament), but rather, following Rabbi Hillel, “what is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.”

So a hypothetical extrapolation (about what another might want) seems to lie at the center of moral thought in the West, but as Skully wrote in an interesting post, taking the position of the other creatively, in play — what she and scholars call intersubjectivity — is also a central component of fantasy. I think this might be one reason why people worry so much about the moral aspects of fantasy — because fantasizing and moral imagination both share the same activity of “taking the position of the other” — as does prayer for those who do not know that we pray for them and cannot be asked. Skully describes the effect of fantasy as having the effect that “subconscious desires can be covertly played out beyond conscious awareness.” In praying for each other, I’ve become increasingly convinced, we need to think seriously about whether aspects of our fantasies don’t transgress these lines. You may say that praying for the conversion of the Jews is not the same as praying for the end of the famine in Somalia, and I think that’s a fair objection, of course. But a lot of moralist intervention justifies itself on the basis that it constitutes something the object of the intervention would want, if he or she were only thinking rationally.

Believe me, I think I know what the line is between thinking about others’ desires when I seek to make an ethical decision, and pretending I know what others’ desires are, either in ethics or in fantasy. I ponder this problem consciously and rationally, too. I have a list of reasons (maybe I’ll publish them one of these days, if I can find a way to make them a bit funnier) why the “real” Richard Armitage and I would not be ideal romantic partners, despite the occasional fantasy that we might be, and the question of religion ranks high on the list. It’s not that I think he’s unethical or irreligious, but I’m a special stripe of religious, I’ve learned, and I don’t know how to change that. Every romantic partner I’ve ever had has been strongly religious, and most of them have had a childhood socialization somewhat like mine (albeit not necessarily as pietist Lutherans). If you want to understand how I think or act, you have to keep in mind that those issues are never very far from my mind. But in my fantasy, Richard Armitage is the kind of man who not only acts decently, which is a pattern that can be observed in reality and makes up a strong part of his appeal — he’s the kind of man who is willing to to be prayed for in the way that I want to pray for him.

I think that’s why I’m wistful when I look at that photo. Of course, I’m distressed for Mr. Armitage and pray for (ethics be damned) his speedy recovery. But as I resolve to do that, I realize that even my prayers for him involve an indulgence of my fantasy of his ethics and my own fantasy of care for him. As I seek to pray for him in the way that I most want to, I realize how little I know about whether, and how, he might be willing to be prayed for. I’m wistful for my own picture of a man who wants to be cared for in the way(s) that I am skilled at caring.

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I’m still vidding that pesky Guy. Grrrr.

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Time for some actual, not just fantasy, ethical action:

It’s that time of year again: a point at which we think about the needs of others in the midst of gratitude for the gifts we have received. Here’s a link to Mr. Armitage’s recommended charities at JustGiving and a link to Act!onAid, a child sponsorship organization for which he recorded a voiceover in December 2010. In 2011, Mr. Armitage also participated in fundraising efforts for Christchurch Earthquake Appeal. You can also generate a donation by doing any amazon.co.uk or Book Depository shopping that you do for the holidays via RichardArmitageOnline.com, or amazon.com or amazon.co.uk shopping via RichardArmitageNet.com, as these fansites both donate earned commission to charities that Armitage has endorsed. Fans have also donated in honor of Armitage to Oxfam International.

~ by Servetus on December 8, 2011.