Letter of the day - Why a formal prayer?
published: Sunday | March 30, 2003
THE EDITOR, Sir:
MR. SUAH, in The Sunday Gleaner of March 16, 2003, is proposing a "better prayer" for Parliament. I am wondering how does one judge a prayer to be better than another? Surely, not by one prayer being easier to say than another!
Mr. Suah, let us see what results the present Parliamen-tary Prayer is producing before we try another. Not much harm can be done by giving the present prayer a first chance. In fact, let us pray that some good will come out of it.
Once upon a time, on a certain Jamaican estate, an illiterate East Indian named Byah was converted to Christianity. He was taught, by the pastor, to recite the Lord's Prayer, and to do it when he woke and when he was about to go to bed. Charlie, who lived in the barrack room next to Byah's, eventually asked him to whom was he talking in his room.
When Byah explained, Charlie remarked, "But is noh di same words you talk to him all di time? Him shuddah know dem by now, so dat yuh don't ha' fi talk dem. Jus' say, "Ha di same t'ing, Lord."
Why a formal prayer, anyhow? Since the vogue is to start proceedings with prayer, why not those present who are inclined to invoke the Supreme, be asked to pray spontaneously? Look around at the variety, the fecundity and the changing wonders of Nature, and at events in our worldly affairs over which mortals do not seem to have any control, it is obvious that God dislikes monotony.
