Prayers Only Work When We Listen To Reason

Sometimes prayer just isn’t enough. Even where two or more or a multitude have gathered. 

It’s not that heaven isn’t listening…it hears everything, even those things you don’t want it to hear.

Those of us who’ve prayed for our leaders are aware that in this era of governance, it takes more than prayers. It takes reason. And it takes a populace that responds to reason by acting on it.

Maybe I should stop thinking about how this world is evolving. Maybe it’s pointless to sit in the stew of all we’re allowing to pass…or pray for those who welcome this darkness: as normal, acceptable, even desirable—though it’s clearly brutish, unconscionable, irreparable, and ungodly.

Prayer in the absence of reason is cultish and hollow. If we could apply reason to what’s unfolding before us, we might have a genuine change of heart. 

For instance, we might ask if it’s reasonable for a president, any president, to silence a reporter and call her piggy in front of the world. We might then ask if it’s reasonable that the vast majority of news commentators were good with lowering the bar and brushing his misogynistic outburst aside.

I wonder…

Is it reasonable for our president to continue to break federal laws and snub judges’ orders without consequence? Do laws even matter anymore? Or should they only matter when members of the other party commit crimes, or when we, the powerless, do?

Is it reasonable for the American president to extend full, ceremonial, red carpet treatment for his old pal, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman—whose members of his own security team were accused of killing Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi? Well, to repeat Trump’s words, “These things happen.”

Yes, these things are happening in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific Ocean lately, with 83 criminal, extra-judicial killings during 21 airstrikes on civilians. Is this reasonable, too?

When people are struggling every day to afford food, housing, and healthcare, is it reasonable for the president to spend up to 2 billion in taxpayer dollars just to rename the Department of Defense the “Department of War”?

Is it reasonable for our president to enrich himself and his family—to the tune of billions of dollars in this year alone—through his “let’s make a deal,” pay-to-play schemes that trade America’s future in exchange for his personal gain?

Is it reasonable for this president to strap his brain exclusively to his obsessive need to perpetuate his grandiosity through an “Arc de Trump,” a redo of the White House in his image, or a seeding of his hotels, golf resorts, and now a $TRUMP meme coin in the darkest corners of the world—all the while slamming and branding Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green as “Marjorie Traitor Greene?”

Is it reasonable for the “leader of the free world” to declare that 6 Democrats are guilty of sedition and deserving of death for urging public servants to refuse illegal orders?

Is it reasonable for any of us to pretend this president cares about anyone other than himself and the elite he clearly protects? 

Is it reasonable for any of us to stand by as this president continues to wield his corrupt predilections as a bone saw to dismember our nation’s cherished values, ordering more ICE agents to shoot pepper balls at clergy and other peaceful protesters?

We can all pray for better days. But we should also reason clearly with what “better” should look like—not just for us, but for the next generation and beyond.