Bored-ass Jesus will see you now, By Mark Morford

[madokie]

Proclamation for Days of Prayer for Rain in Texas -- thusly issued after a staggering drought has ravaged the state for months, ruined crops, devastated local economies and dropped reservoir levels to record lows -- might at first glance induce, as it most certainly did for me, a chortle and gasp at the governor's somewhat mindless view of God; it might first make you think, "Oh Rick, you loveably despicable hunk of right wing chuzpah, you. Don't you know such peculiar entreaties just make God roll her eyes and laugh?"

But then I paused and stepped into the wider view, reminding myself that such divine petitions have actually been around for millennia, across all lands and clans, from Christian to pagan, Islamic to Native American, every sort of human tribe imaginable offering every sort of aching, needful plea to any one of a million faces of god for all manner of blessing and baby, windfall and watershed, crop rebirth and game-winning touchdown pass. Naïve? Maybe. Sort of beautiful and eternal? Well, mostly.

Don't we all understand, at root level, that there is tremendous transformative power in collective prayer? Just as there is in, say, collective meditation, collective love, collective hate, collective song, collective breath, collective just about anything? So you know, why the hell not? You go, Rick, even if you are a wildly hypocritical, climate-change denyin' shrillbucket of gun-happy obnoxiousness. Whoops, sorry. All love, baby.

It all dovetails nicely -- assuming you strip naked, drink enough whisky and howl at the moon, as I have -- with the goofball imaginings currently on exhibit over in Oakland, in the form of a happy nutball octogenarian named Harold Camping, a frail little pastor of a strange little church whose mathematically precise Rapture deadline is coming up -- oh my God, really? -- in just a few weeks. ...


(Full URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/04/27/notes042711.DTL&nl=fix)

[Tunkamerica]

1. yes because those fly-over states are known for their weird religious beliefs... whereas california

is the epicenter of normality

[Javaman]

6. You haven't been to Texas recently, have you? nt

[Motown_Johnny]

2. What good is having a God if you can't ask it for rain?

I mean, at that point you may as well do without.

[Scuba]

3. How's the Prayin' for Peace thingy going?

[crickets]

4. I love Mark Morford.

"It's all coming down on your blasphemin' head on May 21, to be exact, the date which Camping recommends all hardcore Christians set the alarm early and pack some bologna sandwiches, strawberry Kool-Aid and superlative blotter acid for the long, strange trip to the great intergalactic cherubs n' candycorn theme park in the sky. You ready?"

:rofl:

[alterfurz]

5. "Don't pray when it rains...

...if you don't pray when the sun shines." -- Satchel Paige

and vice-versa?