Cable TV Prayer

by Dan Bouchelle

I will never forget the days just following the Oklahoma City bombing. So many unthinkable things had happened that it seemed the whole State of Oklahoma lay quiet and numb. We witnessed sights we never dreamed we would see. We stared in unbelief and then in horror. How? Why? Who would do such a thing?

In the endless news coverage of the events following the bombing, one small thing stood out to me. One Sunday afternoon, Bernard Shaw of CNN asked a police chaplain to lead a prayer on the air. It was a beautiful and appropriate prayer—moving in and of itself. Yet it was startling—not because you don’t expect to hear prayers offered in times of crisis—but because you don’t expect to hear them on CNN. You don’t expect to hear Bernard Shaw ask a chaplain to pray. But, there it was.

Witnessing that prayer caused me to see again that great tragedy is often the only thing that will open people up to their finitude and the absolute necessity of God. I don’t mean to imply that Bernard Shaw or the producers of CNN were converted. I don’t know if any of them before or after held to any form of Christian faith. But I do know that a network that promotes a secular view of the world and a decidedly anti-Christian bias found it necessary to request prayer in the face of horror.

Of course, when you witness such destructive power and evil, to whom else do you turn but God? What else can be done but pray? What a blessing in such a time to be able to pray, to speak to the Holy One whose love and power to give life exceed the overwhelming capacity of humanity to perpetrate evil and destruction.

Thank you, Lord, for being there when we hurt. We cannot stand the load of the sin and pain without you. But with you, we can face even tragedy with hope. For if through the cross you can bring salvation to the world, surely you can bring healing and some blessing even out of that which by itself is tragic and evil.