(Thanks to Rawstory for pointing me to this tale at SFGate.com)Why Rocky Twyman, a public relations consultant, church choir director and community organizer from Washington, D.C., was in San Francisco is unclear.
Here's what he did when he got there: He held a prayer service at a Chevron station, praying to the Christian God for cheaper gasoline. Twyman had held a similar service back home in Washington a couple of days earlier, and by this time has moved on to do it again in an Oakland church.
"God," says Twyman, "is the only one we can turn to at this point. Our leaders don't seem to be able to do anything about it. The prices keep soaring and soaring."
While Twyman believes prayer is the last resort, he suggests you not get too wordy or flowery in your prayer. God may not appreciate that. Just say "God, deliver us from these high gas prices."
I wonder if there's a timeline for God to answer?
Twyman is not your usual run-of-the-mill nutcase. He has done lots of interesting things, including trying to get Oprah Winfrey nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. A really good thing has been his involvement and success in getting African-Americans to become bone marrow donors, as for a long time, "racial and ethnic minorities have been underrepresented on the national donor registry."
And when it comes to praying for gas, he says that's just the beginning. People need to "walk more, leave those cars at home, and carpool. We have to become more practical."
But he's convinced that God can bring down the price of gas because God has done some wonderful things in his life. But we have to pray; we have to ask God to do it.
Okay, but as we've said on several occasions, all the scientific studies done on intercessory prayer indicate it doesn't work. And when God can't even heal a young mother of cancer and lets her die at age 24 leaving behind two young children and a bereft husband, why should she care about gas prices?
It would seem that if there is a God out there somewhere, and if, as we're told, this God loves us, that she ought to know how people are suffering from the high price of gas and do something about it without being begged.
What kind of god needs to be begged?
1 comment:
People always think that God will respond to the woes of Americans. So far, He has not listened to woes of most people on earth regardless of which name people give Him. Why would god give Muslims and dictators so much oil? Why didn’t He give more to the USA? Pray for oil discoveries in the middle of our deserts in the hope that “God likes deserts. Have God loving people pray in every language known to man on the off chance that God takes turns listening to different languages on some kind of schedule. Intelligent Design presupposes some efficient way of handling requests, otherwise the din would be deafening even to God. Some group of angels probably is assigned to separate the real problems from the mundane, like make the next card the dealer turns up be what is needed by some pious gambler. Why not pray for more money in our pockets so we could all afford to pay the new price for gas?
Why not pray that the oil barons donate their profits to all of us regardless of political or religious affiliation?
How much gas did this guy waste driving to and from gas stations anyway?
How about a generic prayer for a cheap and easy substitute for gas right now? That should be an easier miracle than most we read about in all the various Holy Books in the world.
Bob Poris
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