The letter was short. “Dear Sean, do you believe prayer works? I don’t. Please pray I survive my surgery today.” Signed, Anonymous.

Dear Anonymous, before they wheel you back, a few things:

New York, December, 2004, a national survey of 1,100 physicians, conducted by HCD Research and the Louis Finkelstein Institute found that 74 percent of doctors believe prayer-miracles have occurred in their career; 73 percent believe they can occur at any time.

Duke University doctors recently studied 20 heart patients. The patients didn’t know it, but their names were sent all over the world. To places like Nepal, Jerusalem, Baltimore, etc. Randomly selected people prayed for participants’ recovery. Patients performed approximately 50 to 100 percent better than patients who received no prayer.

At San Francisco General Hospital’s Coronary Care Unit, 393 patients participated in a double blind study on prayer. Participants remained blind throughout the study to prevent bias.

Those who received prayer had less need for mechanical ventilators; required less medications, diuretics, and

antibiotics; required less CPR; reported less occurrences of pulmonary edema, angina, congestive heart failure, and cardiac events. There were significantly fewer deaths.

In a study of 999 cardiac patients from Mid America Heart Institute of St. Luke’s Hospital, those who were unknowingly prayed for fared 90 percent better than heart patients who didn’t receive prayers.

The American Heart Journal studied the effect of prayer on 150 patients undergoing angioplasty with stent insertion. Participants were randomly assigned for prayer. The “prayed for” group reported significantly fewer complications than the control group.

Elisabeth Targ, a doctor at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, studied the efficacy of prayer on 40 AIDS patients. Half of patients who received prayers from places as far away as Alaska and Puerto Rico required fewer hospitalizations.

In two similar studies that…

Oh, to view a sunrise.

To see that huge ball of brilliant orange light, peeking above the trees, reflecting on the mirrored lake. The orchestra of colors in the sky, as the morning sun lights the clouds from beneath, transforming them into the pink and gold frosting on the Birthday Cake of Life.

It’s a new day. It’s your day. Made just for you. All 8 billion of you. It’s our day. And the whole world is waking up to all the possibilities thereof.

A family of ducks flies in V-formation, hovering above the water. I hear their voices bouncing off the waves. I wonder what they’re saying. (“How come Harold always gets to fly at the front?”)

And in the faroff, there is the perpetual noise of a barking dog, reminding its negligent owner that, hey, the sun is up, so it’s time for said owner to get off his or her fat assumptions and feed them breakfast. This turns out to be my dog.

And everything just feels brand

new. Fresh. Perfect. Untainted. Newborn. Newfound. Newmade. Unspoiled. Original.

There have been one trillion six hundred fifty-eight billion one hundred ninety-five million sunrises since the earth was formed. And each one is STILL just like the first.

Sunrises have not changed in the last 5.453 billion years. Each dawn is identical to history’s inaugural sunup. And I think that’s nice.

Because, God knows, everything else on this planet has changed. Forests have been cut down. The Fruited Plains have been mowed over to make space for another Red Lobster, Ulta, and Best Buy. The Purple Mountains Majesty have all been bought by real estate developers. Everything is always changing, from Sea to Shining Oil Slick.

But not sunrises. Each daybreak is still unsullied by the hands of man. No corporation…

The boy didn’t have a lot going for him. At least, that’s what his parents first thought.

His parents were concerned. The other children would not stop laughing at their son. The other kids had turned him into a joke.

His name was Al. And there was something definitely different about the child. Foremostly, his speech. He didn’t speak until age 3. Not a word. Which means he never used any of the obligatory babytalk words like, “dada,” “mama,” “bye-bye,” and “poop.”

The doctors said it was a developmental delay. The long gaps between his verbal responses. Speaking only in fragments. Al didn’t start using complete sentences until age 4.

When his folks put him in school, it was hard going. The other kids teased him, incessantly giggling at him, whispering. He was bullied. Degraded. His teachers couldn’t connect with him. He was frustrated. He once threw a chair at his tutor.

The school was perpetually sending letters home, mostly about his behavior. He was a daydreamer, socially weird, he hated authority.

One teacher’s note said: “he will never get anywhere.” Another teacher said he was “mentally slow.”

The final straw was when a teacher’s note said the school was unable to teach this kid. So his exasperated mother purchased several books and tried teaching him at home.

Eventually, he found his way back to school, but he wasn’t your model student. And nothing had changed.

He still got crummy grades in geography, history, and languages. He still had a hard time making friends. Still disliked teachers, and all forms of authority. The kids still laughed.

By his teenage years, it was all he could take. He would inevitably leave school to join the prestigious ranks of us High-School Dropouts. (We were happy to have him as a club member.)

I’ve got your back today.

You don’t know me, but I’ve been watching you since you were a baby. I’ve been here beside you. You could call me your guardian angel, I guess. But we don’t really call ourselves anything.

Try not to think about the medieval depictions of us. Forget the wings and Grecian gowns. We’ve been trying to outlive that stereotype our whole lives.

We are not tall, muscular, blond, asexual creatures who wear glitter foundation and no underwear. There are no halos floating above our heads. Neither are we fat flying babies with bows and arrows.

What we are is highly advanced spirits who stand with you all the time. We are a cloud of witnesses to your entire life. Some of us have been human before. Throughout history, some have called us saints. Which is sort of ridiculous, because when we were on earth we were anything but “saintly.” Sometimes, we are the souls of your loved ones. Sometimes we are angels.

Either way, we are

a multitude of souls, sitting in the nosebleeds, watching your life play out. Some of us have been where you are. We have done what you’re doing.

Your religion is a funny thing. While nearly 80 percent of the world population believes in us, a lot of people are afraid to talk about our existence. Churches don’t mention us for fear they might sound like heretics. Ordinary people won’t talk about us because they don’t want to sound like they have been taking hallucinatory substances.

But 80 percent. Come on, people. Have you ever seen 80 percent of the globe agree on ANYTHING? Historically, humans can’t even agree on whether to use the metric system. But they agree on us.

Why? Because too many people have had experiences with us. There are septillions…