A Post-Election Nonpartisan Prayer for the Nation
By Phyllis Cole-Dai, Election Day, November 6, 2012
The voting done, the ballots counted, all the winners announced, and our nation’s next president elected, let us now fold our hands.
Let us thank our God for giving us the greatest political system in the world, in which tens of millions of our citizens choose not to vote and the votes of millions of others are suppressed by our compatriots; in which our political candidates spend tens of billions of dollars on their campaigns while throngs of us haven’t enough money for adequate food, housing, education or health care. Praise be!
Let us thank our God for giving us the greatest educational system in the world, which so capably prepares us for the exercise of citizenship. We have learned well to confuse opinions with facts, lies with truth, empty rhetoric with substantive debate, political ambition with ability, and extreme loyalty to party and ideology with deep patriotism. Praise be!
Let us thank our God for giving us the greatest economic system in the world, in which money is power, corporations are people, economic growth is the true gospel, class warfare is a sign of progress, and all but the wealthy have a character defect. We are indeed grateful that we can look to the wealthy for guidance, trusting them to tell us which candidates we should vote for and which policies we should support—all, of course, in our own self-interest. Praise be!
Let us thank our God that we are the greatest people in the world. We will therefore defend ourselves and our superior way of life with the greatest military in the world, even if we must sacrifice our entire collective good to maintain it, even if we must ask our God to destroy others among God’s children on our behalf, even if we must lay waste to the Earth itself. The right of self-destruction is ours, after all, for our God has given us Creation to do with as we wish. Praise be!
It is indeed glorious, O God of ours, to live in a country that knows no shortcomings. We require no fixing. We ask only for your unceasing blessing, for our own sake, and for the sake of our children.
Yes, our hands are folded, and will forever remain so. Amen.
Wherever You Are