Prayer is Back! Or is It?
Published in Marietta Daily Journal (GA), Jan. 14, 2023
Many
were surprised that prayer was so freely offered up recently at an NFL
ballgame. The onsite praying for injured Damar Hamlin of the Buffalo Bills, as
it turns out, was well received by the general public. The nation was ready for
this scene.
The much praying that went on and continues to
go on for Hamlin has been sincere and abundant. For those who don’t follow
professional football, the Monday, January 2nd game between the
Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals came to an abrupt halt just after Hamlin
tackled Cincinnati’s wide receiver Tee Higgins in the first quarter of the game.
After the tackle, Hamlin stood but then went instantly into cardiac arrest and
fell to the ground. The game was postponed after the 24-year-old Hamlin was
taken away in an ambulance.
As
Hamlin was being attended to and then driven away, many Bills team members
began to fall to their knees singly, visibly overcome by grief. Eventually a circle
of praying professional athletes developed, many of them weeping, all of them
attempting to give emotional support to each other. Spotted here and there were
players from the Bengals’ team kneeling as well. America witnessed big, strong
athletes praying and baring emotions. Real men, I call them.
While
some news outlets ignored the praying, emphasizing instead the question of what
would be done about the game, ESPN did not ignore it. In fact the day after the
game, ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky, an outspoken Christian and an NFL veteran, uttered
these words on NFL Live: “I’m gonna do this out loud. I’m gonna close my eyes.
I’m gonna pray out loud. It’s on my heart.” In his prayer, Orlovsky said the
following: “God, we come to you in these moments. We believe that coming to you
has impact. We believe you, God. We’re
sad and angry and we have questions and we know that some things are
unanswerable, but we want to come to you and lift up Damar’s name. We pray for
strength for Damar, healing for Damar, and comfort for Damar and peace for
Damar’s family. If we didn’t believe in prayer we wouldn’t ask. We believe in
prayer. I lift up Damar’s name in your name. Amen.”
Orlovsky’s
two ESPN analyst colleagues commended him for his sincere prayer, one of them
adding, “Football is so secondary now. We’re all praying for Damar.”
During
this same week of Orlovsky’s praying, the U.S. House of Representatives began
every day of its proceedings with prayer led by the House Chaplain. Because a
Speaker was being chosen, viewership of these proceedings on C-SPAN was at a
new high. Americans got a chance to see that our nation’s lawmakers have not
ceased having prayer. Indeed the official brochure that details the House Chaplain’s
duties reads, “To bring a dimension of faith to human events, giving praise and
thanks to God for what God is doing in the world, in the nation, and in and
through leaders and ordinary citizens.”
Oops!
Who knew that so “religious” a statement appeared in a document that details
the duties of the House Chaplain? Today’s vastly over-reaching Judiciary will
have no part of such transcendent talk or emphasis in our schools – where it’s
needed most – but thank God our lawmakers can still have prayer. And thank God
for a bold believer like Dan Orlovsky. Truth
is the House and Senate have always had prayer, but with the growing bias against
all things religious, many citizens probably assumed that even Congressional chaplains
had been silenced.
Alas,
even Hollywood at least heard mention of prayer this week. At the ever
declining Golden Globe Awards show, veteran actress Angela Bassett accepted her
Best Actress in a Supporting Role award and commented that her mother had
always taught her that good things come to those who pray.
Indeed
they do. FDR believed so. On radio on the occasion of the June 6th,
1944 Normandy invasion he addressed “Almighty God.” Referring to troops who
would not return but would fall in battle he prayed, “Embrace them, Father.”
Further on, “Oh Lord, give us faith in Thee and in each other.” The President
closed his prayer by saying “we need not a day of prayer but a continuum of
prayer.”
America
needs a prayer meeting. She also needs, as FDR put it, “a continuum of prayer.”
Self-sufficiency and denial of all things transcendent are killing us. Anxiety is
getting a hold on far too many. Crime is rising. Devilish sensuality is
blatantly aimed at our children. I’m with
Orlovsky and FDR. God is real and we are
in bad need of His love and care.
P.S. From the Boston Globe: “Doctors are ecstatic
about Damar’s recovery.”
Roger Hines
January12, 2023
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