Dear God..

A good friend sent a link to the website, PrayforSarahPalin.com. We thought it was a joke. Nope. Sadly, this one is real. The goal is to recruit people in every zip code to pray for Palin and her family, they even have a counter to keep track of the number of people praying and the number of zip codes participating - there's even a nifty prayer map. And, in true 2008 fashion, if you sign up (of course, we did - we were the sole representative of 90230) you get an email reminder and update.

BC finds the whole enterprise cringe inducing but in theory, harmless enough. Praying for the candidates is a good idea. In fact, why not encourage people to prayer for all four of them. According to the PrayforSarahPalin.com people it is "Because Sarah Palin has been thrust suddenly into the spotlight, we are calling all Christians to say an extra prayer for Sarah." Agreed on the "suddenly" but "thrust???" Did someone hold a shotgun to her head? She made a choice to seek the 2nd highest office in the country. It is alarming enough that other people are suggesting that the spotlight is too harsh and mean to sweet little SarPa - the lipstick wearing, gun toting, barracuda, hockey mom, GOVERNOR. Now the candidate is whining about the effects of being thrust into the spotlight. What, she's six weeks in now? Six weeks and it's too depressing? Good thing she knows how many people are praying for her. We're so pleased that instead of using the campaign trail to talk about the economy or education or poverty, SarPa's chatting about herself, her feelings, her lack of engagement with the news and how happy she is that people are praying for her. Once again, we see how important prayer is to SarPa's campaign.

BC thinks the Episcopals have it right, in the Prayers of the People, they pray for national and world leaders routinely. Prayer is good. One of the best things about it - it's not partisan. Maybe Christians ought to take a cue for God's all loving, all embracing nature. Maybe exploitation of the most high for personal political gain isn't what Jesus had in mind when he said pray like this. Some things are sacred.