The Education Prayer

Brother Samuel stood at the head of the meeting hall, eyes closed, hands held high, beckoning the good Lord to bless and bestow grace on the gathering of conservative Christian and political activists. His voice was deep and passionate, and those in the hall felt as if they heard poetry, the words speaking to their very souls. Brother Samuel’s deep southern accent gave the low toned discourse unparalleled discernment to those in attendance—it reminded them of their heritage and of how life had seemed better, in the distant past.

“Lord almighty, we, your faithful servants, beseech you to help us in our cause of improving our country for our children, for we are your true, righteous and ungilded servants. We know Lord that if you be for us then who truly can stand against us. Our virtuous endeavors shall be held up, and we will be victorious against your enemies, and ours. Our glorious efforts will be noted in the Eternal-Book as our aggrieving contribution to your everlasting kingdom, and perhaps, humbly we ask, be conferred as penitence for our most grievous sins, and thus, earning us salvation from the depths of fiery hell.”

Brother Samuel went on for another 5 minutes before getting to the point of his prayer and the very reason they had assembled that weekday night.

“Lord on high, we are concerned for the blight of our youth. Availing evil perpetude from our schools and the tutelage of our youngest brethren is of our highest concern. It is our duty, and your will, that we employ holy indignation to win our just and fervent cause. . .”

It was nearly fifteen minutes later that even the most devout protestant in the group began to worry that perhaps Brother Samuel was Sisyphus and his prayer a proverbial ROCK from which there would be no end to the uphill roll. Some even quietly offered a few short words of prayer to the almighty themselves.

Quietly, the back door at the hall creaked open, and a shadowy figure slowly entered and began to walk noiselessly down the center aisle of folded chairs. The restless air, brushing lightly against the cheekbones and upwardly stretched palms as he passed, eyes opening to see the hindmost of a bearded elderly gentleman. Later, people would reflect on the pale skin of the stranger and his wizened face—not much more could they postulate on recollection.

The pale stranger walked to the head of the hall and stood behind Brother Samuel who was still evoking the wrath of God on education. His eyes only were still creased shut within the hall—he unaware of the stranger behind him. Unaware that is until a pale hand grasped Brother Samuel’s shoulder and pushed him aside.

A gasp from the crowd and Brother Samuel committed itself to reverberate within the hall’s ether, a drum roll of sorts to what came next.

The pale stranger stared back at the crowd with cold black eyes and said in a deep and commanding voice, “Your prayers shall be answered. . .”

The inflection of that voice gave conflict to those words for the crowd—a potentially happy moment stifled to ruins. With a moment’s pause the pale stranger said again:

“Your prayers shall be answered if you do not alter your false supplications, for I am a servant of the most high and have been availed to let you know that all prayers are but two—one said prayer, another unsaid. The Lord has commanded me to relay to you that second prayer for it is also as true as the first and shall have no less consequence.

At that, the pale stranger bowed his head, raised his arms, and spoke as the Lord instructed:

“Almighty father, we wish to use you as a pretext for our actions. We wish to justify our mission of education reform as a way to glorify you and use your powerful ministry as the cornerstone to our blasphemous supposition.”

For those willing to reflect on the words spoken, it should have occurred to them that the meeting hall was attached to the back of a church and, indeed, all attending the meeting purported to be God fearing.

“Help us to hide our hypocrisy in that we detest government intrusion, except when it involves our sacred designs and causes. We wish to be veiled from the reality that the past was not as great as it is remembered, and that change is inevitable.

Help us to continue our delusions that our children operate with the same expectations and pressures that we did—support us in our efforts to hold our youth to our strata of history, not allowing them to build above and beyond our level of comfort.

We wish to give the pretense of respecting teachers while also saying educators are deviously corrupting children. We believe they have a worldly purpose of conspiring to undermine our youth, by making them unable to distinguish right from wrong, as we see it. Future generations should always respect our codes—both religious, political—as they are proven best for all the world’s societies.

We know Father that we expect improvement in education as we bind, hinder and demoralize our professional educators. We know that our chains will guide them to meet the needs of our schools and that our goal of accountability without consideration of resources or the nature of the students themselves is best practice.

We ask with the most sincere hearts that we not be held accountable for the actions of our children or expect to be responsible for the efforts within our homes in support of the instructive cause.”

The pale stranger prayed for another few minutes, and not even Brother Samuel could move. It was as if they were transfixed through irregular means. After a few minutes, the pale stranger said “Amen” and lowered his hands and opened his eyes.

He addressed the crowd:

“I have told you the second meaning to your prayer. It is up to you to conduct yourself as you see fit.”

Just then a lightning strike flashed in the window, and the lights flickered and faded out for a few brief moments. When the lights returned, the pale stranger was gone.

The next few minutes were spent talking about how absurd the pale stranger’s anti-prayer was. “That wasn’t at all what I was praying for,” said Brother Samuel, now back in control of the meeting. “He must have been a teacher,” yelled a shadowy stranger from the back of the room! All the members in the hall shook their heads in agreement.

The meeting continued as planned. . .