It’s been a rough goddamned week. At least, I imagine if there were such thing as a deity, this week would have been totally damned to the outskirts of non existence. The fact I work for the postal service is reason number one to obliterate this past week from the memory flavored proteins of my brain. Add on to that the ever increasing humidity of the Ohio Valley I am so “blessed” to be alive in. It’s like sucking on a wet towel every time I have to breathe outdoors. The on and off again reminders that my body is slowly killing me hasn’t been the most pleasant either, quite literally landing me in the ER for a fun time with Oxytocin and pain killers the other night. This week has completely sucked more than its fair share of saltiness, but I try to remind myself there are those who have it worse.

There are also those fortunate enough to escape the clutches of said horrible weeks simply because of a prayer.

You know, I normally don’t hold attributing small successes to prayer against those who practice such things. If small coincidences make your day, have at it, but this week I was so dejectedly human that I seriously got borderline enraged at a coworker’s exclamation of a miracle when the company fuel card she lost was later discovered in her mail hamper. All thanks to St. Jude, of course. I’m sure you are somewhat familiar with the Prayer of Saint Jude. It’s the prayer you’ll see posted a trillion times a week in classified ads in your local newspaper. A direct hotline to make personal requests to God for those cases so difficult, it seems Jude is the only saint you can rely on to accomplish your impossible mission.

How the fuck a gas card would trump lesser issues like starving children, a father desperate to find his missing child, or a co worker suffering from endometrial cancer, is well beyond my understanding. Especially if all one can think to pray for is a missing fuel card during such a specifically formatted prayer request. This isn’t me judging the deity worshiping co worker here. I’m judging the prayer because obviously out of the billions of people on the planet, surely at least one has asked intercession for world peace, right? At least one in a billion over the course of man’s existence? Surely such a request would have been granted by now, statistically speaking. It has become quickly apparent to me that prayer will never be about a greater good if it is truly effective, because it isn’t the greater good that this prayer is designed for, now is it?
Seriously, let’s cut the bullshit here. Not in just Christianity with it’s plethora of saints to offer help with any problem you can imagine, but with our New Age types that like to remind us that the Universe hears us and will directly lead us to what we ask for. An example of a Universe prayer isn’t really a prayer though. It’s more like a command is what I’ve been told by a friend of mine that runs a naturopathic shop at a flea market I sell at now and then.

She grew up in a Universalist Unitarian household, so I’m not overly surprised at her path in life. She ain’t no spring chicken either. Pushing into her early sixties, wearing star tattoos, having heavily wrinkled skin from years of Read more here at my blog http://thebluegrassskeptic.com/2015/06/13/hey-jude-dont-let-me-down/