The prayers of a showgirl
Let’s be honest: if you know anything about Taylor Swift, you know she’s made a career out of singing her way through love — the good, the bad and the “you’ll hear from my lawyers.” Listening to her discography is basically attending an extended girls’ night of laughter, tears, revenge fantasies and Shakespearean longings.
But then comes “The Life of a Showgirl,” released October 12 — and suddenly, the heartbreak poet is in love. Like, actually in love. With someone who celebrates her successes, wears her merch, and loves her cats like his own. It seems that God answered Swift’s prayer, sung in her new song “Wi$h Li$t”: “Please God bring me a best friend who I think is hot.”
“Please God bring me a best friend who I think is hot.”
Is it absurd to imagine the God who parts seas and champions the vulnerable also moonlighting as a matchmaker for the world’s most famous pop star and a tight end from Kansas City? Absolutely. Does that mean it didn’t happen? Not necessarily.
Because buried in Taylor’s glitter and synth beats is an honest-to-God prayer. A selfish prayer? Maybe. A superficial prayer? One could argue. But a prayer based on the universal human need for love and connection? Absolutely. Please God, give me someone who loves me and who I think is hot.
This comes from a woman who has “danced through the lightning strikes” and “made her own sunshine,” as she sings on “Opalite.” She has built an empire out of emotion and turned her diary into an industry. She wrote and recorded an entire album on her days off from the Eras Tour, a music series so financially seismic economists started tracking it.
And yet – for all her strategy, success and self-made resilience – there was still one thing Taylor Swift couldn’t manufacture, schedule or manifest: “Please God bring me a best friend who I think is hot.”
Honestly? Same.
As I’ve listened (and re-listened) to “The Life of a Showgirl,” this line continues to seize my theological imagination. I absurdly imagine a pastor in a glitter-pink stole stepping into the pulpit, hands lifted in solemn absurdity — “O Lord, we pray, on behalf of thy servant Taylor: send her a best friend who is extremely hot.” And the congregation, without missing a beat, responds, “Lord, in your mercy…”
“Hear our prayer.”
It would be fair to roll your eyes, fair even to get up and walk out of this daydream were to happen in real life. This prayer would be neither noble nor noteworthy; but it’s a prayer, nonetheless. I’ve prayed a version of it myself, privately.
What is the purpose of prayer?
I was recently in a season of discernment. I prayed to God daily for direction, for guidance, for a professional calling that would be a perfect match, the Travis to my Taylor. Something had to change. And God answered that prayer. The same God who frustratingly doesn’t answer nearly enough prayers, who can leave us asking why, and who often empowers us to fix our self-made wrongs – that God answered my prayers. I received a new call, a new ministry, a new congregational relationship.
As Christians, we believe God is at work in our lives. Not just in the work we’re called to do, but in our relationships too. I fully believe God sent me my spouse. I know my best friends are Godsends, too. It’s not kismet; it’s God making a way. You’ll never convince me otherwise — even as I acknowledge the large question of theodicy following my sentiment. Namely, if God brings good things into our lives, is God responsible for bad things … or even the lack of “good”? Is it God’s design when we lose our job, when we are still single after years of longing for a partner, when someone we love gets sick?
Maybe Taylor’s prayer and my connection to it all reads too shallow, “showgirly,” and insignificant. Especially considering that life is hard. And prayer is a communal tool of churches and Christians to engage the discord of that “hardness.” Each week, we pray for the world, the church, the community. We name before God that children are starving, bombs are flying, genocide is unfolding, fascism is here. Lord in your mercy, truly, hear our prayers. It’s all very real, painfully so.
Even as we pray for all the injustices of the world, we will also pray prayers that seem shallow. We want love; we want belonging; we want celebration. We want to be free and accepted and to be told we’re good. We want a best friend who is hot (at least Taylor and I did). Even those of us, like Taylor Swift, who “have it all” continue to desire connection and beauty. This is lived theology, the daily expression of faith.
Nihilism or hope?
You can fall in love while the world falls apart — that’s not nihilism, that’s hope.
The world is falling apart – and it needs our prayers and our action. “The Life of a Showgirl” addresses none of that, at least not on first listen. But sometimes, in that litany of hard, what you need is the seemingly selfish prayer answered. You can fall in love while the world falls apart — that’s not nihilism, that’s hope. As Taylor sings on her new album, there’s nothing wrong with a little “Honey,” a sweet relief, a taste of forever, a gentle chord progression wrapped around you like “Opalite skies,” time to enjoy what is beautiful. And this, “The Life of a Showgirl” offers in full.
