Why didn’t anybody tell me that this morning was the National Prayer Breakfast? Was it a potluck? I could have made a coffee cake or something. Or at the very least stopped somewhere for donuts. (Nothing filled, of course, just “holy” ones.)
Prayer and belief-in-a-deity-that-answers-prayer form a kind of self-stoking mechanism. If people didn’t think their prayers could be answered, they wouldn’t bother believing in God. But as long as they cling to the notion that there’s a kindly old gent in the sky who sometimes takes requests, they’ll go ahead and seek divine intervention for their own desires, failings, or bad luck. It’s kind of a fallback position.
Prayer on a national scale is, to my mind, entirely too suggestive of trying to get God to choose sides. The fact that we’re probably the only nation that does this no doubt convinces those who participate in the ritual that it just might work. After all, who’s He gonna listen to except those talkin’ right to Him? (That’s right, God is Travis Bickle.)
But it ain’t prayin’, it’s brayin’ – the participants puffing up their own sanctimoniousness behind a façade of public piety. Didn’t Jesus have something to say about guys like that?
Prayer seems like a contradiction in a nation steeped in Calvinism. Believers are always insisting “Thy will be done,” as if to say “Here’s what I want, God, but if that’s not cool, then go ahead and do what You were gonna do anyway.” As if He wouldn’t. And for those who are really into the notion that God’s plan is already decided, how you gonna change His mind? Why even try?
I have no idea what requests were sent up during the NPB. Maybe somebody even ordered up a Grand Slam. But you can bet God must be getting a little tired of all this holier-than-thou nonsense He sees in America. Maybe if it were a National Prayer Barbeque (with a keg), everybody could loosen up a little.
Prayer and belief-in-a-deity-that-answers-prayer form a kind of self-stoking mechanism. If people didn’t think their prayers could be answered, they wouldn’t bother believing in God. But as long as they cling to the notion that there’s a kindly old gent in the sky who sometimes takes requests, they’ll go ahead and seek divine intervention for their own desires, failings, or bad luck. It’s kind of a fallback position.
Prayer on a national scale is, to my mind, entirely too suggestive of trying to get God to choose sides. The fact that we’re probably the only nation that does this no doubt convinces those who participate in the ritual that it just might work. After all, who’s He gonna listen to except those talkin’ right to Him? (That’s right, God is Travis Bickle.)
But it ain’t prayin’, it’s brayin’ – the participants puffing up their own sanctimoniousness behind a façade of public piety. Didn’t Jesus have something to say about guys like that?
Prayer seems like a contradiction in a nation steeped in Calvinism. Believers are always insisting “Thy will be done,” as if to say “Here’s what I want, God, but if that’s not cool, then go ahead and do what You were gonna do anyway.” As if He wouldn’t. And for those who are really into the notion that God’s plan is already decided, how you gonna change His mind? Why even try?
I have no idea what requests were sent up during the NPB. Maybe somebody even ordered up a Grand Slam. But you can bet God must be getting a little tired of all this holier-than-thou nonsense He sees in America. Maybe if it were a National Prayer Barbeque (with a keg), everybody could loosen up a little.
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