Kyle City Limits
by BRENDA STEWART

On this, the eve of the National Day of Prayer, I am staggered by the power of the internet and how fundamentally gullible our society as a whole seems to have become. Evidently, a thinly-veiled insidious attack on Obama went viral last week and millions of people worldwide were greeted with the shocking bulletin: “AMERICAN PRESIDENT BANISHES PRAYER IN UNITED STATES” and the nation worked itself into a collective frothing fervor with our duly elected leader being coined, once again, the anti-christ.

And honestly, there is no way to counter sensationalism of this magnitude. Bad news travels fast. Absolutely asinine fear mongering travels at the speed of light. But, for the record, Obama did not abolish prayer, religion or even speaking in tongues in America. Being the pragmatist we entrusted to lead us, he was quoted last summer as saying, “Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation, we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of non-believers.”  This seemed to fuel the hysteria recently when he simply chose not to revive the Ecumenical Services (ec•u•men•i•cal: adj. representing a number of different Christian churches, promoting or relating to unity among the world’s Christian churches) which Bush established in the White House a couple of years ago in an embarrassingly public endorsement of his evangelical Christian voting bloc.

Obama’s staff confirms that the president does, indeed, pray daily and asserts his conviction in our freedom to worship at will, regardless of religious affiliation, uninfluenced or corrupted by government intervention. That, he believes, is one of the fundamental things that makes our nation so great.

I suppose, if you aren’t open to listening to Obama, perhaps you’ll be willing to take it from the big book itself, which addresses this very issue in Matthew 6:5. “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth; they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

It’s as simple as that. From God’s mouth to your ears.

brenda@haysfreepress.com