Sunbonnet Soliloquy

By Jewell Ellen Smith

Saying a Prayer Helps

“From ghoulies and ghosties and

Long-leggity beasties and

Things that go bump in the night,

Good Lord, deliver us.”

This is an old and anonymous prayer, said to be Scottish in origin.

It makes me think of a phonograph record that came out years back, featuring a narrator who rattled off harmless tales of this and that.

One yarn was about a prayer composed in haste by a desperate man who was walking through the woods one day. The man was happy, not desperate, when he began his walk. He whistled a tune, twirled his cane, and saying a prayer to his Maker was the farthest thing from his mind. Then, he happened to glance back over his shoulder. There stood a big black bear!

“Oh, Lord, help me!” he cried as he leaped to the nearest tree and started climbing.

The bear leaped and started climbing too.

“Oh, Lord, help me!” the man cried out again.

But the higher he climbed the closer the bear came. He could feel his feet slipping and hear the bear growling.

“Oh, Lord,” he screamed in desperation, “if you can’t help me, please don’t help that bear!”

There are prayers and there are prayers. It is generally assumed that the sound of them floats up toward heaven. But this is not always the case.

In mid-February the Associated Press news service filed a two-paragraph article from Madison, Wis. to this effect:

“When a woman insisted that a man was praying in the ladies room at the State Capitol, guards found out he was praying in the men’s room as well.

“Assembly Speaker Ed Jackamonia said what the woman heard was the morning prayer of the Assembly, piped into the restroom.”

Probably the shortest, most absurd mealtime blessing ever composed -- and let’s hope it never reached heaven -- was the one by a stingy old codger who wanted the plough hands who tilled his fields to put in a real day’s work, every day.

The planter got the ploughmen started at sun up and kept them going until sun down. At high noon he personally brought their lunch to the field so there would be no need for the men to leave their ploughs for more than a few minutes.

He gathered the men together, passed out the food, and chanted this blessing:

“Bless the meat!

Damn the skin!

Back your ears,

And cram it in!”

Isn’t that ridiculous!

A lovely prayer is the club collect used by many women’s groups throughout the United States, and in many foreign countries. Its best lines go like this:

“Keep us, Oh God, from pettiness; let us be large in thought, in word, in deed...Let us take time for all things; make us to grow calm, serene, gentle...And, Oh Lord God, let us forget not to be kind.”

The perfect prayer, as all know, is the Lord’s Prayer, in the Bible.

Should we not say a prayer every day? Of course we should.

We may not be worried about long-leggity beasties, or bears, but there are in life all too many things that go bump in the night!

Saying a prayer helps.

Published March 1979. Click your browser’s ‘Back’ key to return.