Burke: If it seems like we haven’t a prayer, consider these

Published 1:30 am Monday, November 9, 2020

By Tom Burke / Herald columnist

Well, it’s over and Biden’s apparently won (as of this writing and subject to recounts) with 74 million votes. But 70 million people voted for Donald Trump, affirming their belief in Trumpism and all it represents.

Now some readers may expect me to exult in Biden’s win and deplore the many who supported Trump: a proven liar, grifter, cheat, racist and wanna-be dictator.

I won’t. I am not going to write about Trump’s distain for democracy or question those turning a blind eye to the 235,000 dead due to his incompetence. Because it just doesn’t matter; all those MAGAs believe what they believe, and four years of documenting Trump’s horrors hasn’t swayed them an iota.

Instead, I’d like to offer something radical (for me) — an entreaty to god — to bring us together and help me forgive those who supported that terrible man; because unless we can find a way to de-tribalize, we are lost and I despair greatly of the future.

Although I was raised Catholic I am not overtly religious. But the lessons learned from my Baltimore Catechism stuck, including how prayer “expresses our love of God; thanks Him for His favors; obtains the pardon of our sins and the remission punishment; and ask for graces for ourselves and for others.”

And, yes, this may be a foxhole conversion, but for me, now, prayer seems the necessary antidote to hate.

There’s lots of good “prayer” books — the Old and New Testaments, the Quran, the Jewish Koren Tehillim, Buddhist mantras, and the Catholic Liturgy of the Hours (the Divine Office).

But a few years ago I discovered The Book of Common Prayer, the Church of England’s liturgy “written” in 1549.

I read it, often. I like the grace and formality of the language and its archaic style appeals to me. And it fills a place in my soul.

While monitoring the election results I recalled a prayer “for restoring Publick Peace at Home,” which seems written not in 1549, but in 2020. Here it is:

O ETERNAL God, our heavenly Father, who alone makest men to be of one mind in a house, and stillest the outrage of a violent and unruly people: We bless thy holy Name, that it hath pleased thee to appease the seditious tumults which have been lately raised up amongst us: most humbly beseeching thee to grant to all of us grace, that we may henceforth obediently walk in thy holy commandments; and leading a quiet and peaceable life, in all godliness and honesty, may continually offer unto thee our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving for thy mercies towards us. Amen.

That’ll do for a start. And whether you believe in the Christian God and Jesus Christ, Allah, Yahweh, Jehovah, Elohim, Baha, Bhagavan, or Akai Purakh, we should all entreat our particular deity to heal our differences and put us on a course of reconciliation.

And as long as we’re at it, there’s another prayer in that good book, one “In the time of any common Plague or Sickness”:

O Almighty God, who in thy wrath didst send a plague upon thine own people in the wilderness, for their obstinate rebellion against Moses and Aaron; and also, in the time of King David, didst slay with the plague of pestilence three-score and ten thousand, and yet remembering thy mercy didst save the rest, Have pity upon us miserable sinners, who now are visited with a great sickness and mortality; that like as thou didst then accept of an atonement and didst command the destroying Angel to cease from punishing, so it may now please thee to withdraw from us this plague and grievous sickness through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Now I have long held televangelists ala Jerry Falwell, Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart in great disdain, even before they were exposed as charlatans, hypocrites, and thieves. And view with similar disdain preachers and politicians who reject science and endanger lives by insisting on large gatherings.

I have, though, revered those priests, pastors, rabbis, imams, nuns, monks and other religious folk who have humbly dedicated their lives to their god. And it is in the spirit of these, who pray with great faith, that I pen this column and ask God’s help.

Joe Biden set a high bar last Wednesday saying, “It will be a time … to put the harsh rhetoric of the campaign behind us, to lower the temperature, to see each other again … to come together as a nation. We are not enemies … there will be no blue states or red states … just the United States of America.”

I fear I may be disappointed by a faith in prayer. I can’t see hardcore MAGA hearts being turned or God’s intersession affecting QAnons or Donald Trump himself. But grace is indeed amazing; we are indeed lost and need to be found; are blind and need to see. So, as I recall my alter-boy Latin I say, “Oremus,” (We pray.)

Tom Burke’s email address is t.burke.column@gmail.com.