Using Prayer for Justice

There is a great deal of brouhaha over the prayers and the pray-ers at the inauguration. I regard the whole thing with a mixture of distaste and amusement. As I asked on a previous post, is our nation well-served by a bunch of preachers parading about at national events? What Jesus said comes to mind.

The pundits are exegeting the prayers to see which one was more faithful, true, right, and just to their respective speculative deities. Hi ho.

Not all is lost. One fruit of such an occasion is to utilize these prayers to raise funds and awareness for equality. Since The Gay was the lightning rod for all of this, I advocate pledging an amount for every word of Rick Warren's prayer to your favorite LGBTQ organization.

Here is the text and video of his prayer. It was 489 words. I personally pledged a quarter for every word to PFLAG Tri-Cities and another quarter for every word to the Tennessee Equality Project.

Here is my post about that. I only say that I pledged just so you know I am serious. Time now to get out the check book.

Driving Equality was much more organized than little old me and hosted a Rick-A-Thon, raising thousands of dollars! There is still ample opportunity to participate. The idea there is to pledge an amount based on every second of his prayer. I calculated 4 min. 41 seconds or 281 seconds.

For those who think that is negative or snarky, OK.

Here is another idea. Right Reverend Gene Robinson offered a prayer at one of the events. His prayer did not make the HBO special. What a bummer! So, redeem that injustice by pledging an amount for the good bishop's prayer for justice and equality. You might make a contribution in his name.

His prayer was 500 words on the dot. Easier to do the math.

After the rain, a rainbow.