April 17, 2011
Holy High Gas Prices!
A Georgia pastor is gathering his congregation and assembling at gas pumps to pray for lower gas prices:
WMAZ-TV reports the Beacon of Light Christian Center is planning the Saturday prayer gathering at gas pumps outside a Kroger grocery store in Dublin.
Pastor Marshall Mabry said he believes that if church members come together and pray as a community, they can make something happen.
Mabry said that with prices reaching almost $4, he says he plans to ask God for help.
He said it’s the third time members of his congregation have met at gas pumps to pray.
Mabry said he wants to start a movement which spreads from the small town of Dublin to the rest of the nation.
I find it ironic that, for folks who believe in prayer, it hasn’t occurred to ask instead for an end to war in the Middle East, as opposed to an arbitrary dip in the price of a barrel of oil.
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Hey, Daryl. Josh is calling you.
I remember this same thing happening a few years ago when gas prices spiked; I guess they are feeling their Easter oats.
I have been subjected to many prayer ironies lately. It appears that prayer can bring about better pain relief than morphine (even when morphine is being administered), but is perhaps not so good at preventing the need for it in the first place. Everything that happens is “for a reason” (ie. The Plan), but since anything that happens will be part of that plan, having the Plan is the same as not having the Plan. But–let’s all pray that the Plan heaps harm on those people, as a means of sparing us, because–look at how we pray in just the right way, at the right times, and with our faces screwed up to indicate the weight of our wishes.
God (speaking through his vessel, Randy Newman): “That’s why I love mankind.”
The problem is that so many of the people who believe prayer will decrease the price at the gas pump also want war in the Middle East, since they believe that’s where Armageddon is going to happen.
Jamie–yes. Prayer knows no contradiction. The ongoing miracle of our universe is that so much of it may be understood as constant and reliably predictable (to paraphrase Einstein), whereas faith in prayer seeks to make the needs of a person superior to the formative powers of the universe.
I promise you there are more people praying for peace across the world, very specific prayers for places and people as there are dopes praying for a reduction in gas prices.
This will be meaningless I’m sure, but the summer camp I attended (no Jesus Camp hysterics, sadly) was a Christian summer camp and every night at 9pm we would gather to pray for peace first in our own lives, and then extending out to the state, country and the whole world. These prayers were specific, often the people who prayed for those countries were people who had lived their whole lives there, helping people as best they could and when they spoke of a need for peace, it was clear that they had a first-hand knowledge of what it was they were saying.
We sang a song “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.” I always liked that, it made it an action, something that we could influence and exert power over. Our own actions could bring peace in our daily lives. We may not be able to sway nations the way the President can, but we are able to create and engender peace in our own small ways, in our everyday lives.
I didn’t realize until I was older that people in our camp organization all over the world would pray for peace each night at 9pm, (they still do) and so there was 24 hours of prayer, every day, always. I imagined a continuous wave of peace, of people committing each night, renewing a commitment to living peacefully.
Even if you don’t believe in prayer, know that there are people who want peace and take a very active role in peace in the ways that they can.
Not even remotely meaningless, Amae. I am certain many people around the world pray that the horror of war may end. And I think I understand some of what you say — that the bulk of Christians do not desire, nor do they pray for, a holy-moly apocalyptic war to end all words.
And I think that’s an important thing for us western-euro western-hemispherico atheists to understand.
I do believe that in this world there are many fucked-over and/or righteously resentful people for whom faith and politics come to be indistinguishable.
I’m rambling, and I have more to say.
Thinking and trying to type as I tap I on my phone is frustrating, but I wanted to toss in the barest beginnings of some thoughts.
War to end all wars.
Though I kind of like “war to end all words.”
Spot on, Amanda.
I’m happy to see people pray, individually or in groups, for good to be done–so long as it is coupled with an actual desire to act in ways that may bring good things about. I also think that people can do such things without first praying about it, and that many who pray (speaking of my sample experience) stop at prayer, or even believe that it is pointless to try to push for change since whatever happens will surely be what God planned to happen. I went to a Christian summer camp too, for several summers when I was between the ages of nine and twelve. We sat around the campfire and prayed hard and sang Cum Ba Ya. We also learned a lot about shooting guns, since the Lord needed such skills in His soldiers, and we heard all kinds of interesting things about race and politics. I never saw a face there that was not white.
I suppose that the thing I am reacting to here is the thought that among those who believe in the power of prayer there are many (down here, anyway) who seem to think that religious organizations–of the right sort–are the only path to moral or hopeful action on behalf of all who suffer in the world. And yet, suffering doesn’t really seem to be a problem for them when it’s nonbelievers, heretics, pagans, enemies of America, or those who threaten the “free” market who are on the receiving end. I wonder how Christians would feel if a person said, “I am praying to the one and only true God (not yours)–who will utterly destroy you and everybody you love who does not submit to Him–that you will recover from your illness.” I wonder if “Thank you” would be the right thing to say.
Yes Daryl, and that is absolutely not the case, good can be done by anyone, really. Even when some people try to do bad things it occasionally works out for the best for all concerned.
The loudest voices do not speak for the majority of people, I have found.
Ideological commonplaces are often the primary source of expression for majorities. I wouldn’t say they are more likely to be right because they are certain and silent.
I’m praying for higher gas prices, and guess what? God is listening…