April 16, 2005
Hounded
A priest friend, newly ordained, had been asked to invoke a meeting of her state legislature. She asked the woman who recruited her if it mattered whether, in her opinion, such prayer was unconstitutional.
Oh, no, the woman said, no problem. Reluctantly, then, but in a spirit of good citizenship perhaps unconsciously motivated somewhat by a need to impress her rather conservative vestry, my friend accepted the invitation.
She immediately set about searching through her liturgy collection for an impressively unique, but appropriate prayer for the occasion. She soon found a splendid blessing of the hounds she never expected to get to use which, with a few minor changes, seemed altogether adequate.
Thus prepared and moving on to other duties, she received in the mail a few days later, an official-looking envelope. Inside was a VIP pass to the legislative parking lot together with guidelines and examples for how to pray “inoffensively” at a meeting of a government agency.