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Best Prayers Thread

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SLD

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We unbelievers do hear some doozies! Here's one I saw today:

“Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth into battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended in the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames in summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it —

For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!

We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen."

I love it!! I could definitely go for a religion like that. I think this prayer works best before a High School football game. Preferably in a rural public school where the population is super religious. That should wake them up!
 
My personal fave...

"Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to ensure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen."

- Roger Zelazny
 
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to hide the bodies of those physicians I had to kill
Because they were trying to kill my patients"
 
"Rub a dub dub, god less the grub'.

Apart from thanking a non-existent entity, I like that sort of prayer. We should be grateful for having food.
 
SLD said:
We unbelievers do hear some doozies! Here's one I saw today:

“Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth into battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended in the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames in summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it —

For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!

We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen."

I love it!! I could definitely go for a religion like that. I think this prayer works best before a High School football game. Preferably in a rural public school where the population is super religious. That should wake them up!
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This is Mark Twain's war prayer. I can't believe you haven't heard of it before now! It may some slight variation, but I didn't check to see if it's verbatim or not.

But yes, it's a good one, been around for a century now. :D
 
Twain's prayer is a bit wussy in stretches, compared to Godsholyword...Twain lets the children wander in rags, denied even the peace of death. God (the pro-life deity) is beseeched on this matter in Psalm 137, and his word offers a different fate:
Remember O Lord, the children of Edom
in the day of Jerusalem;
who said, Rase it, rase it!...
Happy shall he be,
that taketh and dasheth thy little ones
against the stones.

Psalm 149 is a song of praise to the Lord -- let's call it a prima facie prayer -- which might have inspired Twain:
5. Let the saints be joyful in glory;
let them sing aloud upon their beds.
6. Let the high praises of God be in their mouth,
and a two-edged sword in their hand
7. to execute vengeance upon the heathen,
and punishments upon the people...

I numbered the verses to draw attention to verses 6 and 7, which rumor has it are framed on Mitch McConnell's office wall.
 
I've always liked the Compline, the night prayers. At seminary, we gathered each Wednesday to watch the sun set over San Francisco, then retired indoors to sing the full service by candlelight, in well practiced harmony. I think during that whole stressful experience, those were the only times I genuinely felt able to relax.

"O God, your unfailing providence sustains the world we live in and the life we live: Watch over those, both night and day, who work while others sleep, and grant that we may never forget that our common life depends upon each other’s toil...Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping; that awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in peace.

Lord, you now have set your servant free to go in peace as you have promised. For these eyes of mine have seen the salvation which you have prepared for all the world to see: A Light to enlighten the nations, and the glory of your people Israel. Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever."
 
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