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Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Prayer works; answer isn’t always, ‘yes’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
She called early Sunday morning, before service. The stranger said she had a brain tumor.
She told Sharon Watkins, the pastor, that she wanted Tucker First United Methodist Church to pray for her.
The congregation learned of the unusual call during “known concerns,’ that time of the service where we acknowledge those who are at home or in the hospital, ill. Then, we pray for them.
Last week, the issue of prayer turned very public when Gov. Sonny Perdue held a prayer vigil for rain. It made national news. Whoopi Goldberg, the comedian/actress, defended him on a recent episode of “The View.” Skeptics criticized his faith-based approach to the drought. Some called it an embarrassment to the state, a political stunt, a joke from an administration that’s done too little, much too late.
Nowadays, we see various public displays of people praying, giving thanks. Some football players drop to their knee to say a prayerful thank-you for scoring six points. At award shows, those rappers who put the most vile lyrics to beats thank God for their success.
It’s not my place to judge their sincerity. Yours neither.
So rather than “go there,” let’s flip the script. Think about those who embrace no institution of faith; who have no desire to explore it; who shun belief in, or even the slightest acknowledgement of, any kind of higher being or spirituality.
What do they credit for their blessings? Better yet, when times prove difficult, seemingly unbearable, to whom or what do they turn for relief?
On April 4, 1993, Tommy Tomlinson wrote a form letter to his dearest friends. A nagging hoarse throat had turned out to be a tumor. Doctors removed a mass about as big around as the fingernail on the pinky finger from one of his vocal cords. Additional treatment was needed. If successful, he’d be left with a raspy voice - “like Joe Cocker on a two-pack-a-day habit,” he wrote.
For those of us who would want to help, Tomlinson made a suggestion.
“If you’re the praying kind, pray,” he wrote. “If you’re not, build up good karma however you can.”
Today, Tomlinson is an award-winning columnist for The Charlotte Observer, a 2005 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in commentary.
Thank science and medicine. But don’t discount what his friends tapped into - faith, spirituality, positive thoughts and energy. In other words, “prayers.” And if Tomlinson had left us, if his surgery had failed, that still wouldn’t have been a reason to say, unequivocally and absolutely, that prayer can’t work. You don’t always get what you want, when you want it.
After Sunday service, Debbie Carlton, the associate pastor, told me that the woman who’d called Tucker First UMC had planned to call churches across the metro area and ask for prayers.
Maybe she called yours.
Don’t let her down.
Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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