Entrepreneurs for the rain god

About 250 people showed up for Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue's prayer for rain press stunt yesterday. A couple of dozen protesters, mostly members of the Free Thought Society protesting the intermingling of church and state, were forced to stand out of sight over a block away. One protester was arrested for trespassing for going onto the property of a church located across the street from the Capitol steps.

Perdue, who apparently ignored advice given in the popular 1980's book Dress for Success, was resplendent in his green suit and cowboy boots. He said they were there to "pray up a storm." Better watch what you pray for, Bro. Sonny. Katrina was one hell of a storm.

Too bad the Atlanta Braves retired Chief Nokahoma. Maybe he could have done a rain dance for us.

Gary Tacon, a New York businessman who traveled to Atlanta to promote a gizmo he sells that makes drinking water out of moisture in the air, was allowed to circulate among the crowd handing out fliers. Protesters and others with signs were pushed back over a block away. I heard a local Atlanta radio personality discussing yesterday afternoon how he was herded off with the protesters after he showed up carrying a cardboard placard with radio station advertisements on it. Dozens of TV cameras were, of course, allowed up close, to capture every moment of this parade of sound- and video-bites. After all, this party was thrown for the press.

"We've been so busy industrializing that we've forgotten how to spiritualize," Gil Watson, senior minister at Northside United Methodist Church in Atlanta, told the crowd. Watson could take some pointers from Bro. Jesse Jackson on speech-rhyming.

"We've been so busy with our economy and what we can have and what we can possess that we've forgotten that you possess it all. Great God, this is your land. We till it for you. We are entrepreneurs for you, dear God."

Last night, at my house 80 miles north of downtown Atlanta, it rained. For about two minutes. A soft, barely noticeable rain. Just enough to wet things. It was nice, and then it was gone.

Skies are blue this morning.

But WeatherUnderground says there is a 40% chance of showers for the area from now until around 10 pm, when the chances of a thunderstorm rise to 80%!

Thanks, Sonny! Thanks, God!

I pray the weather service is correct.

The spin doctors at the Christian Broadcasting Network wasted no time in proclaiming that the prayers worked, based on the weather forecast for rain later today. Sheesh. Wednesday rain has been in the forecast for several days now, long before Sonny's stunt. The CBN story has a byline of "Sarah Miracle," who, curiously, doesn't appear on the list of CBN reporters. Is she real, or did they just see an opportunity to slide in a little "uplifting" propaganda?

Does my skepticism show?

News stories about Bro. Sonny's prayer-a-thon:

L.A. Times

London Times

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

USA Today

TVNZ, New Zealand

Links to about a zillion other stories


Image: Raining in Atlanta, by Hemant Banavar

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What is the nature of prayer?

To say it's been dry in Georgia the past few years would be an understatement. Our reservoir lakes are now just mudholes, and you can't even ride an inner tube down many of the rivers in north Georgia, flow and levels are so low. Only about 100 days' worth of water is said to be available for the metro Atlanta area.

Or so they say. The Army Corps of Engineers denies that Georgia's water supply is in jeopardy.

Whatever the case, we need rain, and lots of it.

Georgia's governor George Ervin "Sonny" Perdue has invited religious leaders from around the state to attend a Pray for Rain prayer service next Tuesday.

"The only solution is rain, and the only place we get that is from a higher power," Perdue spokesman Bert Brantley said yesterday in announcing the service.

The prayer service will be held outside the state Capitol building next Tuesday, November 13.

Gov. Perdue is, I've been told, a Freemason and is a Sunday School teacher at First Baptist Church of Woodstock, one of the largest Southern Baptist churches in the nation.

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I was banned from a fundamentalist Christian forum a few months ago for daring to ask questions there similar to the ones I'm asking here.

Everyone knows when you have a problem, you can "take it to the Lord" in prayer.

But what, exactly, does that mean? What is prayer? How does it work? What are its mechanics?

Is there a Big, Bearded Anthropomorphic God taking 911 calls from prayer-petitioners, analyzing requests in nanoseconds, then dispatching angelic help if the request is deemed worthy?

Is God/Jesus/the Lord some cosmic Santa Claus?

Is prayer scientifically provable? Is prayer a form of meditation? Is it some quantum rearrangement of "The Force"? Do the words or thoughts actually travel anywhere, or just rattle around in your Bone Box or the church building?

Is prayer a form of "positive mental attitude," like that discussed in The Secret, which says that you will attract to you what you focus on?

Does prayer work better when many people are praying for or about the same thing? Is group prayer more effective? If so, why?

Is a recited, "scripted" prayer more effective than an off-the-cuff unscripted prayer?

Is prayer always about asking for something?

Gov. (and Bro.) Perdue's prayer meeting next week is for the purpose of asking a "higher power" to grant a favor. I would imagine that clergy from most of the mainstream religions in Georgia have been invited to attend, and that they, each in their own way, some quietly meditative, some red-faced and near-screaming, some pompously Falwellian, will offer up their prayers asking the Higher Power for rain.

This predisposes us to believe certain things: that there is a Higher Power; that this Higher Power pulls the strings of Nature; that this Higher Power is not always benevolent, or else we'd have had plenty of rain without having to ask; that this Higher Power can be begged, cajoled or convinced to give something that It has been purposefully or negligently holding back, rain, and that if It is asked enough, It will give in.

If soon after this prayer meeting, the skies open up and it rains for days and days, filling our lakes and putting us back above normal rainfall, does that mean the prayers "worked?" And again, if so, how did they work? Did Higher Power suddenly notice how dry it is here when the prayers reached Heaven, and say, "Oh, sorry... here ya go," like a pet owner when he realizes he forgot to feed his dog?

If it doesn't rain after this state-sponsored prayer meeting, and the drought endures, what does that tell us? Higher Power doesn't listen? Doesn't care? Is punishing us? Needs a bit more coaxing? Is ticked off that that one guy, yeah, you, over in the corner, didn't join in the prayer?

Do you have any answers? Can you explain this prayer thing? What is the nature and mechanics and purpose of prayer?

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