THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 11, 1994 TAG: 9409090324
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 50 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: Ron Speer
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
Today, let us pray.
Let us pray before meals. Let us pray before we go to sleep. Let us pray with Omie Tillett at dawn as he and other boat captains head out on the Atlantic.
Let us pray for good health. For our children. For the lonely, the sick, the grieving.
Songwriter Paul Simon spoke for me when he wrote (and sang) in ``Mrs. Robinson'' 25 years ago, ``Heaven holds a place for those who pray.''
Benjamin Franklin had it right, too, when he said, ``Work as if you would live a hundred years, pray as if you were to die tomorrow.''
Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr in 1949 also hit the nail on the head: ``Humor is a prelude to faith and laughter is the beginning of prayer.''
I like that a lot. My prayers are full of joy, laughter, song. Sometimes they are prompted by delights, other times by fear.
When I'm sailing the Wind Gypsy I pray a lot, thankful prayers when there are fair winds and following seas, pleading prayers when it's blowing fiercely, lightning is hammering the waters and the waves are overwhelming.
My prayers are not everybody's cup of tea, of course, since I tend to like prayers packed with humor and fun.
Others might find that a bit sacrilegious. And some might say that nobody who sings like me should ever offer a musical prayer.
That's OK. We're all different, with different beliefs in why we are here and what lies ahead.
Which brings me to the point of why I am writing publicly about what I consider a very private action.
I want to make it clear that not everyone agrees with the Dare County Board of Commissioners' decision to urge the General Assembly to put prayers back in public schools.
And although Commissioner Sammy Smith says that in the good old days ``we prayed every morning when I was in school,'' not everybody did.
I grew up in a God-fearing community where everyone went to a church on Sunday - Lutheran, Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, Church of Christ - and nobody thought of praying publicly in school.
There was no way those farmers and ranchers and merchants could have settled on a prayer that satisfied all of us.
Besides, they wanted the teacher to help us learn to read and add and become acquainted with history. Prayer, those folks felt, should be handled by parents.
I agree. How many advocates of prayer in school insist that their kids pray before they leave the house in the morning, or when they return?
And if the government is going to mess with religion, and insist that kids pray every day, I suggest that we draw up laws that require children to pray at home. Surely those prayers would be heard as clearly as anything said in unison in the classroom.
Obviously, most parents would tell the government to bug off and stay out of their private lives.
That was the point made by the Rev. Tom Murphy, pastor of the Roanoke Island Presbyterian Church and the only person to speak in opposition before the commissioners unanimously voted to recommend prayer be put back in school.
``Freedom OF religion demands freedom FROM religion,'' Murphy said. ``Prayer cannot be mandated. . . . Prayer I'm forced to participate in is not genuine prayer.''
I wholeheartedly agree.
And as a former sports writer who heard scores of prayers at football games in the deep South, I always thought free-spirited wide-receiver Alex Hawkins put it best when asked why he didn't participate in pregame prayers with the Atlanta Falcons:
``I hope God has better things to do on Sunday afternoons than watch pro football games.'' by CNB