Last night my husband took me to a dinner meeting of a group which was organized to draw attention to the need to restore the Louisiana coastline and offer ideas to the powers-to-be. It's a fine organization with excellent goals, but I'm near to the end of my tolerance for dinner-speech affairs.
The main speaker was to have been a popular radio personality, but he became ill and was unable to attend. His appearance was the only appeal for me about the whole affair, and he wasn't there. The other speakers were members of the group, a politician, and the man who replaced the main speaker. My prayer as each one got up to the microphone was, "Lord, let this be a short."
Near the end, an old guy who was one of the founders of the group, was given an award. He gave a short speech after he received his award, and mentioned that if hurricane Katrina had made landfall a little to the west, our area would have borne the brunt of the storm. He said, "It was the grace of God," and many were nodding in approval. I'm thinking, "What! The grace of God protected us rather than New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast?" I looked over at my husband, and he was nodding in agreement too. I said to him, "So the grace of God protects us, but not New Orleans. God smiles on us and frowns on New Orleans and Mississippi. That is stupid." My husband looked at me as though I was the crazy one. It was amazing to see how easily crowd mentality can sweep over a group of people. I admit that by then I'd listened to a few too many speeches and was in critical mode, waiting to pounce.
At the end of his speech, he said loudly, "Stay the course! Stay the course! Stay the course!"
What do you want to bet that the guy is a Bush diehard supporter even today?
Speaking of grace, Mimi, with OCICBW down, maybe you could "lend" MadPriest some space here at Wounded Bird if the good father would first promise to behave himself.
ReplyDeleteNever mind.
KJ, "lend" him space! I'd be ruined forever! What can you be thinking?
ReplyDeleteHe probably killed his Mac with his "extreme" posts.
Happy St. David's Day -- enjoy the daffodils - good news that the trial is over and not a terrible result.
ReplyDeleteAnn, thank you. To everyone, Happy St. David Day.
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry that I cannot extend best wishes for the feast day to MadPriest, knowing his fondness for all things Welsh.
I've never thought God spent a great deal of time regulating the weather, having set those processes in motion some time ago. So for better or worse we set outselves up for what nature has to offer, depending sometimes upon where we live, and trust God for the gumption to deal with it and to care for those adversely affected. This is tornado territory and my teeth ache from the times I've heard "God spared us" from folks who weren't the five folks a mile down the road who just blew away. (But it's bad manners not to thank the good Lord anyway if and when you're spared.)
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, at least half the highways in my state are closed right now, the snow drift outside the office door I use is taller than I am and a full-scale blizzard is in progress. Lord have mercy!
Frank D, Lord, have mercy! Despite the fact that I don't believe that God controls the weather, I still pray about it, too. Go figure.
ReplyDeleteIt is strange how people think that God favors some people and not others in the matter of natural disasters. The idea that God is up there in heaven picking which people will be victims and which won't seems rather ridiculous to me.
ReplyDeleteAs for praying about the weather, I can't say that I ever do that. But prayer can have many purposes, and for many, praying about phenomenon that God doesn't manipulate that way really is just a way of venting our concerns to the Deity. The real point is to be in contact with God over the things that matter to us, and yes, the weather matters to us.
Came here for something inspiring, or thoughtful, only found 'Bush Derangement Syndrome'. Sorry G. Mimi, you are off my fqavorites list.
ReplyDeleteAdios, anonymous. Vaya con Dios.
ReplyDeleteMimi- Are you devastated by Anonymous's abandoning of you? Shall I come over to hold you? Puhleez!
ReplyDeleteSomeone somewhere was talking about how, if the power of prayer moved a hurricaine out of the path of your town, wouldn't that mean that the power of your prayer moved it into the path of someone elses'? Is this what we want? Is this what God wants?
I don't think so.
Mystical seeker, I believe that prayer is efficacious for those for whom we pray, but I believe that it's also efficacious for the one who prays.
ReplyDeleteTo be in touch with God is the point of the weather prayers.
Eileen, the heretic, I never pray for God to direct the hurricane to another area. Let it vaporize and disappear. Mystical Seeker got it right. It's about being in contact with God during a time of anxiety.
Amen. I've found myself praying for the hurricane to just go on by, out to sea, to fizzle. When it doesn't but hits some town in South Carolina instead, I feel guilty about feeling glad my area wasn't hit by it. Maybe it's something like survivor's guilt. Anyway, I think God wants us in conversation.
ReplyDeleteAs I write this, we're under another tornado watch. As if we haven't had enough, lately.
Pat, we were under a tornado watch for most of the day, but the danger is past now. But there are still all those other dangers lurking out there, infinite in number, if you think about them.
ReplyDeleteJust a few words to cheer you up.
Grandma Mims...
ReplyDeleteI'm still in Atlanta, but I'll be coming back on Sunday.
This is a cross-post... You asked on OCICBW and I answer here. Our lil' ol' blogoclub is getting more and more interconnected.
Thanks for cheering me up, Mimi!
ReplyDeleteNo tornadoes here last night.
We're expecting severe storms here today, but I'm looking now at those poor people in Alabama and Georgia who got hit by twisters yesterday.
As the sheriff said, as he looked at the ruins of the high school in Enterprise, Ala., where eight students died, "Pray for us."
I am.
Pat, it is very sad. I regret my joke now. I hope you'll make it through today OK.
ReplyDeleteThe "grace of God" in such a situation should be used to invoke greater humility in those whom the storm missed, so that they are moved to greater aid of those whom the storm devastated.
ReplyDeleteSo it's not a bad concept in itself. It's when it's used, as obviously it was here, to justify a special blessing from God which was clearly not in store for others, that it's reprehensible.
Such, as Lewis Carroll observed under very different circumstances, is human perversity.
Rmj, you're right. Anything of grace and benevolence that comes our way should lead to humility and to reaching out to those less fortunate.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I'm joining the First Draft crew in New Orleans at the end of the month. We're to buy our own respirators, and when I went to the web site to take a look, I had a panic attack. I'm wondering if I'll be able to wear the damned thing.
I think that lots of prayers for Divine intervention have the same problem that prayers for weather have. If you pray for someone to get over some severe health problem, aren't you saying that God is up there in heaven picking and choosing which people are worthy of being granted a divine favor and which are not? And that God would actually base that decision on who had friends who would pray for them? To me, this isn't much different from praying for hurricanes to change their course. Either way, it presumes that God intervenes in nature in ways that favor some people over others. And those who suffer horribly from diseases without getting any better, despite all their friends crying out to God to help them, are in effect being told that they are on God's blacklist.
ReplyDeleteWe like to think that we can manipulate God, that God is somehow our omnipotent puppet, or at least that God deals out favors that we can sway a certain way if we use the right words of supplication. I just don't think that God operates that way.
Mystical Seeker, I don't look at it as manipulating God. God has his reasons of which we know nothing. I believe that he/she always answers prayers, just not always in the way we would like. I add "according to your will" to my prayers.
ReplyDeleteThere's a Cajun saying, "Be careful what you pray for. Sometimes it don't smell so good when you hol' it in your hand."