Our Heavenly Father,
Grant us each day the desire to do our best, to grow mentally and morally as well as physically.
To be kind and helpful, to our classmates and teachers.
To be honest with ourselves as well as with others.
Help us to be good sports and smile when we lose as well as when we win.
Teach us the value of true friendship.
Help us always to conduct ourselves so as to bring credit to Cranston High School West.
Amen.
The ACLU and 16-year-old Jessica Ahlquist, of Providence, R.I., are offended by the above prayer, which has been illustrated in a mural at her high school.
She is so offended by it that she, and the ACLU, took the school to court — federal court, of course, where the stakes are higher and the attention certain.
Ahlquist, an atheist, and the ACLU, of course, believe that our culture needs to be protected from the God in whom they do not believe.
They will stop short, of course, of disagreeing with everything other than the references of God in the prayer, which school officials argue is an artifact of the school’s history and which “serves no religious purpose.”
It’s difficult to see who is more in the wrong.
At least Ahlquist, and the ACLU, are open and honest in their disdain for the Lord, their Creator.
What needs to happen, of course, is for Christians — for actual followers of Jesus Christ — to take up this rather well, worded prayer and to offer it in every way possible over every school in our land.
If only ...
Our young people would grow mentally and morally;
They would be kind and helpful;
They would grow to be honest.
They would learn sportsmanship and friendship.
What a different society we would enjoy if those in grades kindergarten through 12 today were to actually fulfill this prayer.
We might, then, live in a land where people, both young and old, would simply say “thank you” when someone prayed for them, instead of turning it into a political soapbox.
In case you haven’t noticed, our land could use the prayer.
— Chuck Smith