Other prayers for other times
By Patrick Kelley (Contact)
Originally published 10:08 a.m., June 14, 2008
Updated 10:08 a.m., June 14, 2008
FOR SOME REASON, The Gazette has not had any requests this year to reprint William Lindsay White’s “Prayer for Rain.”
Written back in the Dust Bowl days, White’s editorial has developed a reputation over the years as a sure-fire drought-breaker. Let a drought go on long enough in a particular community, and somebody is sure to remember the prayer and browbeat the editor of the local newspaper into sending an urgent request to The Gazette for a copy of the editorial and permission to republish it.
Every once in a while, it seems to work.
This week, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius issued a drought declaration for 13 counties in Kansas. Surely someone in one of those counties will be asking for the prayer soon.
But here in Emporia and for miles around, we do not need the “Prayer for Rain” this year. What we need is a prayer for dry weather.
It is tempting to take White’s old editorial and run it backwards — or just change a word here and add a word there to reverse its meaning, but that would not work.
White’s prayer is not just a murmured “please” and “thank you” conversation with the Almighty or an all-purpose fill-in-the-blanks petition. Suitable to its subject, it is full of thunder and lightning and is as much an exhortation as a prayer. Just changing a few words is not going to make it sound any less like a storm. That may be the proper tone to take when drawing God’s attention to a painful lack of something necessary to life. It is not a suitable tone for suggestions that God turn down the tap on abundance.
So instead of monkeying with W.L. White’s prayer, we will take one small liberty with a beautiful old Dutch hymn that is also a suitably humble prayer:
We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing;
He chastens and hastens His will to make known.
The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing.
Sing praises to His Name; He forgets not His own.
Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining,
Ordaining, maintaining His kingdom divine;
So from the beginning the fight we were winning;
Thou, Lord, were at our side, all glory be Thine!
We all do extol Thee, Thou Leader triumphant,
And pray that Thou still our Defender will be.
Let Thy congregation escape tribulation;
Thy Name be ever praised! O Lord, make us free! (And dry!)
We have had all the rain we need for now, Lord. Unless you are planning to stable Leviathan in eastern Kansas, please make the rain cease for awhile and then return it as needed — in moderation.
Amen.
Patrick S. Kelley
Editorial Page Editor
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