First off, don't you just get sick of forwarded emails telling you to pass on a prayer or some religious stuff, often with a promise that a wish will be fulfilled or that perhaps you'd be able to save somebody from whatever... well, at least that's a shade better than the ones which promise you damnation if you don't pass them on. Don't get me wrong... I do pass on prayers because I think prayers are always beautiful. And if indeed it reaches a person at a time that he needed it the most and it helped him, then I've been an instrument for a good deed, but that will still be God's glory. However, I would always cut out the part telling the recipient to pass it on to 4 or 5 or 7 or 10 others. What is that? I think praying is a very personal thing and the act of compelling others to it is almost a sacrilege, or at the very least, an offense to privacy.

In a nutshell, it's one thing to send a prayer to somebody with the intention of sending them an uplifting message and it's another thing to send them a prayer (which in all probability you haven't even bothered to read yourself) for lack of something better to do.

And tell me again why this is such a big deal that I have to give it the time of day.

Moving on...

I really started this post with the subject of prayer cause it hit me at both extremes this morning. The first I've already dealt with, here's the second.

Today's reading in 'Our Daily Bread' is as follows:

"Pop artist Andy Warhol once said that in the television age everyone would have 15 minutes of fame. Yes, fame may come to us, but we should not seek it."

"Selfish ambition (Hey Georgie, are you listening yet?) is a terrible trait that can manifest itself in an ugly passion for the 'best seats,' and for personal recognition. It can cause us to dominate social situations and insist on telling our stories instead of listening to others. We want to be noticed, to be prominent, to be in the limelight rather than on the sidelines."

"God's way, however, is just the opposite. It means learning to be content when others are elevated above ourselves. We learn to rejoice when we give credit to others without insisting on getting it all for ourselves. God's way enables us to accept humiliation (George! Saddam! Sit down and pay attention!) when treated unfairly and to view the experience as a 'disguised grace' - an opportunity to learn true humility."

"We begin to learn God's way from Jesus. He was 'gentle and lowly in heart' and didn't try to protect His own dignity or position. By relying on Him again and again for His help, we become more and more like Him. Only then can we find rest from the posturing and restless striving of selfish ambition."

Could it be possible that somebody told Bush to drop it and leave it with the Almighty? Could it be possible that somebody told Saddam to let Kuwait go and let Allah deal with those who took it from him? But if anybody ever told them these, it is now evident that both men did not listen.

We have hundreds dead and still counting... mounting bodies on top of bodies, mounting tears for lost lives. And still the guns are firing. The face of that captured soldier on TV, scared and confused, turning this way and that, probably wondering what he got himself into, has just got to tell us all. Alas, we're still not listening.

Who's right? Who's wrong? Take the polls to the city squares where they've laid the dead and do your maths!

It's quite a stiff price to pay for the gods to realize two pairs of ears have been put to waste.