Living on a Prayer

As any economist or social scientist will tell you, the key to a free, prosperous, and successful society, is all down to praying to an invisible man who lives in the sky. This is why I was heartened to see the new government continue with the worn out tradition from previous governments in calling for a national day of prayer.

Prime Minister Rowley invited all good God-fearing people; to spend the Republic Day holiday, giving thanks and praying. Some people love to ridicule this proud tradition of having a national day of prayer. They say it’s an empty pointless exercise that accomplishes nothing. These people tend to be atheists or secularists, who are always bitter and angry because as usual nobody invites them to anything.

I’m sure most people spent yesterday in prayer. After all, what good Trinbagonian wouldn’t want to spend a public holiday doing nothing but praying?  Plus so many people in T&T have things to pray for. For example I’m sure Dr. Rowley spent yesterday praying for a comet to crash into Saudi Arabia. Because sorry to say, that’s the only way oil prices are ever going to go up again.

For her part, Kamla Persad-Bissessar probably spent the day praying that she could hire Matlock, the lawyer from the TV show of the same name, to lead her legal action against the Elections and Boundaries Commission. Because hiring a fictional attorney who never looses is the only way she is going to win.

Congress of the People leader Prakash Ramadhar surely devoted his prayers to asking for at least one other person besides him to turn up at the next COP meeting. And there is of course former Independent Liberal Party leader Jack Warner, whose prayers surely involved him asking to avoid extradition to the USA with the promise of being able to wire funds into Gods bank account.

President Carmona who on Wednesday had asked, “ Why cant we all get along?” presumably prayed for more tolerance and understanding amongst all citizens. Which would possibly be reinforced with a threat of a pre-action protocol letter if people failed to comply.

Of course politicians aren’t the only ones with things to pray for. Acting Police Commissioner Stephen Williams must have been busy praying for a way to stem our spiraling crime rate, or at least for people to get off his back about it. As we all know crime is as a result of people having no religious morals, and it’s not the fault of the police that criminals have no morals. Or that they are smarter, more creative and have a higher work ethic than the police.

Those of us who always pray for more religion to be taught in schools look set to have our prayers answered though. Newly appointed Minister of Education Anthony Garcia has said he intends to replace sex education in our schools with religious education. This is a move that’s long overdue.

The inside of a school is no place for children to learn about sex. Children should learn about sex the good old-fashioned way; by going behind the school and swapping Penthouse magazines, or by staying up late and watching Cinemax.

It’s quite possible that many of the nations NGO’s spent the day praying that Minister Garcia changes his position though. Penning an open letter to him this week, they said sex education in schools was important especially “those experiencing abuse, disruptive poverty or under the care of less-than-responsible adults.” They also pointed that a poll commissioned by UNAIDS in 2013 found that four of every respondents (83 percent) agree with teaching age-appropriate sex and sexuality education in secondary schools.

This is how satanic groups love to operate, by flashing their fancy statistics and well-reasoned arguments.  Everyone knows that there isn’t a single problem that we can’t solve through prayer.  Crime - just pray it away. Teen Pregnancies - just pray it away. HIV/Aids - just pray it away. Diabetes and other lifestyle diseases - just pray it away. Sure T&T might have many social ills that we seem to be struggling to deal with; like, a high crime rate, high rate of teen pregnancies, the high rate of HIV/AIDS infections, and the prevalence of diabetes and other lifestyle diseases. But that’s only because we’re not praying hard enough. 

I would like to now share my personal prayer from yesterday with everyone;  “Dear Lord, I kneel before you to humbly ask you to please send your angels of death, to rain fire and brimstone down onto FLOW cable. They took away 16 of my channels including Encore Western. I can no longer watch reruns of Gunsmoke. Please make them suffer Lord. Amen."