Wednesday 24 February 2010

Prayer control

You know, I love to encourage freedom of expression.  In particular the freedom to discuss and argue points is very important. People have to have their say - and often we can learn from other people.  Even if we disagree with them.  And even when they're wrong - as a diamond cuts diamond, or a stone sharpens a knife.  It helps us to cut to the truth. But sometimes people will get carried away in an argument and start sounding like they may be right.  When it seems that someone has God and logic on their side, it's time to adopt other tactics.  Violence is more quickly effective, but can leave people bruised.  Or in some circumstances they may even hit back, and I hate it when things escalate.  But not as much as they do....
But there is a gentler, more effective method of dealing with this situation.  Turn to prayer.
When I say "turn to prayer", of course, I don't mean break out the BCP, or even invite ex-tempore contributions from the floor.  No, you just make sure you're the one doing the praying.  Obviously, it helps if you're the archdruid - but in practice almost anyone can achieve this if they are convincing and glib enough.
So what you do is: you start with some opening, general prayer - ideally giving thanks for the creative dialogue you've been engaging in.  Then move the subject of the prayers to ensuring that God is in line with your views.  Once you've managed this, who can possibly argue?  As long as you leave no gaps then no-one can nip in with their own prayerful views - and who ever interrupts a prayer, anyway?  But to be on the safe side, make sure you breathe halfway through clauses so no-one could ever butt in.
Having ensured that Divine and earthly are both on your side, say "Amen" and clear off pronto - safe in the knowledge that you may not have won the battle, but you've won the prayer war.

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