Letters to God found dumped off New Jersey coast

[Sequoia]

ATLANTIC CITY, New Jersey (AP) -- Some of the letters are comical (a man asking God to let him win the lottery, twice), others are heartbreaking (a distraught teen asking forgiveness for an abortion, an unwed mother pleading with God to make the baby's father marry her).

The letters -- about 300 in all, sent to a New Jersey minister -- ended up dumped in the ocean, most of them unopened.

The minister died two years ago at 79. How the letters, some dating to 1973, wound up bobbing in the surf is a mystery.

"There are hundreds of lives here, a lot of struggle, washed up on the beach," said Bill Lacovara, a Ventnor insurance adjuster who was fishing last month with his son when he spotted a flowered plastic shopping bag and waded out to retrieve it.

<snip>

and finally:

Lacovara said he is sad that most of the writers never had their letters read. But he hopes to change that soon: He is putting the collection up for sale on eBay.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/02/unanswered.prayers.ap/index.html

[YellowRubberDuckie]

1. Wow.

Profiting off of other peoples' struggles. That is just disturbing.
Duckie

[izzybeans]

2. Logically then the Jersey shore is heaven.

Uhmmm Salt Water taffy and letters to god.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

3. Well, Keansburg is the run-down paradise by the sea.

[izzybeans]

5. I thought that was Asbury Park

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

6. Both actually. Asbury Park is just more well-known.

I just spent a lot of time in Keansburg as a kid, so I naturally have a bias towards it. The rides routinely killed people. It was awesome.

[izzybeans]

9. It must have been the home of this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXJQ0Yxi7KU

When we lived in Central Jersey we spent quite a bit of time in Point Pleasant with our son. It was pretty tame. I miss it actually.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

10. Oh the rides were tame. They were just decrepid and dangerous.

[Dukkha]

11. well God is a Skee-Ball fanatic.

and takes the form of Alanis Morissette there.

[izzybeans]

14. That's just some superstitious dogma. God doesn't play skee ball in Red Bank.

That's silly. God clearly plays skee ball in Cape May. She takes the ferry over from Delaware. Jeebus. Get it straight.

[youthere]

23. Cape May is the best. Love it there.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

4. Man, I love New Jersey.

We get the coolest shit washing up on the beach: bodies, hypodermics, letters to God...

New Jersey: The Best God Damned Country in the World

[bigwillq]

8. LOL!

:rofl:

[Bucky]

7. The funniest (and saddest) line in the article comes at the end.

One man wrote from prison, saying he was innocent and wanted to be back home with his family. A woman wrote that her boyfriend was now closing the door to her daughter's bedroom each night when it used to stay open, and wondered why.

A teenager poured out her heart on yellow-lined paper in the curlicue pencil handwriting of a schoolgirl, begging God to forgive her and asking for a second chance.

"Lord, I know that I have had an abortion and I killed one of your angels," she wrote. "There is not a day that goes by that I don't think about the mistake I made."

One unwed mother wrote that her baby was due in four weeks, and asked God to make the father fall in love with her and marry her so the child would have a father.

Lacovara said he is sad that most of the writers never had their letters read. But he hopes to change that soon...

(Better sit down for this one)

He is putting the collection up for sale on eBay.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

12. Well what the hell are you supposed to do with them?

[Book Lover]

16. Ritually burn them, for one

Grant them to a theological university library for another.

[wildhorses]

20. NO--DO NOT--I REPEAT THEY SHOULD NOT BE BURNED!!

They should be wrapped in white silk and the bundle should be tied with a pink ribbon. A proper ceremony with candles lit. Prayers should be made and then a proper burial in a sacred place.

i know some of you are seeing the humor in this situation and that is fine but, i think they should be treated with respect and burning is NOT the way--

burning destroys all the hope whereas burying allows for hope to remain--

yeah, maybe i am superstitious--sue me:P

[Book Lover]

24. In defense of burning

I would say that the act of burning would release the hopes bound onto the letters by the act of writing, rather than destroying them.

I would also say that the act of donating them to a theological university library will allow the letters to be preserved inasmuch as they can be now that they have has a sail in Jersey waters.

I agree with you that I do not see much humor in this either (and I am a stone-cold atheist). I find it highly distasteful that this man is planning on auctioning these letters off.

[wildhorses]

26. at least we are in agreement that the letters should be

treated respectfully :toast:

i think burning is symbolic of denying hope
whereas
i think burying is symbolic of allowing nature to take its course

if they were in my possession i would take them to the highest mountain top, hold a ceremony in the full moon, bury them there on that high mountain top and then burn a small ceremonial fire with some sage and other secret herbs.

i have some wiccan and amercian indian approaches for life. perhaps it is that which is guiding me in this direction.

oh well, they are not mine or yours so it is a moot point. :shrug:

and again it is an atheist that i find to be understanding...i hold you guys in the highest regard, so weird that i have had more interesting spiritual discussions with atheists than others. i have a theory in that regards but am not ready to verbalize it at this time.

thanks for your comments:hi:

[Book Lover]

29. I completely see your point of view

and thank you for your understanding. :toast:

Maybe we should bid together on these letters to make sure the right thing is done by them :-)

[liontamer]

21. destroy them

they were desperate letters that were given to a priest and should be treated as a confidential confession. Whatever secrets those people revealed should have died with the priest.

[Book Lover]

25. Point of clarification

They were not given to a Roman Catholic priest. The minister who received these letters was not bound by the seal of the confessional. And in any case, they were not confessions: they were prayers.

[liontamer]

30. why does the denomination of the priest matter?

yes legally the person can get away with doing this. That doesn't make it right.

[Book Lover]

31. I'm sorry - that wasn't the point I was making at all

My point as just that Protestants (which this man was) don't have priests, nor do they recognize a confessional seal. That's all. I think we are in complete agreement that what the man who found these letters is doing is ethically wrong. Sorry to be confusing.

[liontamer]

33. sorry to misinterpret your meaning

:hi:

[Taverner]

13. Everything is a commodity

Wheat, Land, Sex...and personal struggles...

[GoddessOfGuinness]

15. Seems to me that Lacovara should answer them...

or give them to someone who might.

People's most intimate hopes and fears should certainly not go to the highest bidder. :(

[anarch]

17. hmm...letters to a deity...dumped in the Atlantic

I'm thinking someone just decided that anything addressed to "god" should go to Cthulhu, and so did their best to deliver them.

[C_eh_N_eh_D_eh]

18. See? Even God dumps His trash in Jersey.

[Sequoia]

19. Ha, that's funny. Now if it was letters to Santa O'Reily would be upset.

Christams wars and all that.

I dated two guys from Jersey and they always added an "r" sound at the end of a word that ended in "a". One night one of them's mom called and I could not understand a word she said.

[Ohio Joe]

22. Everyone knows - New Jersey is Gods Country

Because if God did not love New Jersey, it would not be there anymore.

[otherlander]

27. That's not how you talk to God...

You have to write your wish on rice paper, first of all.
'Dear God please send more asteroids, preferably large'
or whatnot.
Then tie them to the string of a yellow balloon, and let go. Take a photograph as it floats away, to be read by wise Athena, before it falls and strangles a bird.
Then burn the photograph.

Burning it will be taken as payment by the fire god. It will also ensure that no one ever learns of your doomed, doomed dreams.

[underpants]

28. God litters?

that makes the natives cry

[olshak]

32. God dropped them there...

...after he got beat up in the movie "Dogma" :rofl: