Monday, September 19, 2011

I Want the Drought to End Too, BUT...

  
Dear People Who Are Members of My Church (Maybe not ALL, but certainly MOST of them),

I have a small issue I would like to address.  It has bothered me for many years, but ever since Mother Nature decided to stop making rain clouds in Texas and it became the land of searing heat this year, it's started coming up a lot more.

It's about your prayers.  Don't get me wrong, I want the drought to end.  I'm glad you're praying for it to end and I am too.  It's the wording I have issue with.  Do you really have to ask for "moisture"?  And when we DO get a little sprinkle, do you have to say thank you for "moisture" too? 

I believe the word "rain" is the appropriate choice here.  We want RAIN.  Or we're thankful we got RAIN.  Why not just say that?  For some reason though, you seem to think that when you're praying you ought to say "moisture."  I have some guesses about why you might feel compelled to say this:

1)  "Moisture" sounds more formal -- No, it doesn't.  Moisture sounds disgusting.  It brings to mind sweat, used sponges, or worse, some sort of feminine issue.  More formal would be something like "waters sent forth from heaven above."  Maybe a bit overkill, but better than saying "moisture."

2)  "Moisture" is more generic and all encompassing and we'll take anything we can get -- While I appreciate the sentiment, there are two problems with this.  First of all, this is Texas.  If you're hoping that we'll get snow instead of rain, you're kidding yourself.  Maybe you grew up in Utah where it actually snows and picked up the habit there?  Well, that brings me to my second point.  You might have learned this in like, elementary school.  We have a word for generic wet stuff falling from the sky: precipitation.  I know it's kinda long, but say it with me now:  Pre-cip-i-ta-tion.  And if you forget the correct generic word, do you honestly think it will hurt to just say "rain"?  I mean, I'm pretty sure if you say "rain" the Lord isn't going to think, "Oh, I was going to send some snow, sleet, and hail, but since they only asked for rain, I guess they're out of luck."

3)  "Moisture" includes humidity and dew -- This is probably the least objectionable reason for saying "moisture." HOWEVER, I hate to break it to you but I don't really think raising the humidity around here is going to stop the drought.  It WILL make us all even more miserably uncomfortably hot and sweaty (moist?), and it may be a little better for the plants, but it's just not going to cut it.

4)  You say "moisture" just to annoy uptight people like me -- By all means, carry on then.  You're doing a great job.

All that being said, keep on praying for rain, or precipitation, or dews from heaven distilling, or... *gulp*... moisture, or whatever.  Just keep praying for something to end this drought.

Sincerely,
G
 
 

7 comments:

Janssen said...

Agreed! I have thought this many times over the summer.

From now on, I will replace "rain" with "dews from heaven distilling." Regardless of the context.

Kristi said...

I love you Gretchen, the moisture thing bugs me too. I'm with Janssen and will add "dews from heaven distilling" to my prayers tonight : )

Bryan said...

Moisture is totally a Utah Mormon thing. People here say moisture all the time in their prayers. Utah is perpetually short of water, and mainly relies on snow to provide, but we'll take a good rain every now and then too. Now seriously, would you really rather say 5-syllable precipitation, or 2 syllable moisture? Especially when teaching little kids to pray? Especially when you also say fark instead of fork? (OK, I don't actually hear that here in Salt Lake)

Spence said...

I like to just say water. It doesn't matter which of its phases of matter it's in, it works. Why try and be eloquent and loquacious when it's so darn obvious that I'm not.

But to be fair, now I'm going to think real hard about what I say in my prayers (making sure I don't say moisture). Well, at least I will think more about them instead of the "standard number 42" prayer formula stuff that goes on a lot in my brain.

Michelle Walkenhorst said...

Amen sister!!!

In our ward, we have 3-4 baby blessing a month. We count how many times "the name by which he shall be known upon the records of the church" is intoned during the blessing. One time Jake's uncle stopped his son mid blessing because he failed to do so. :)

Jake & I chuckle when one of the bishopric says "We'd like to thank the priesthood for passing the sacrament" then we add under our breath "but we're not gonna"

Just do it! Say: "Brethren, thank you for (your reverent manner in) passing the sacrament." See, not so hard. So nit picky are we! ;)

Jana said...

oh my!! Gretchen, I love you! Texas is just too big because you are too far away. :) I'm gonna be giggling through a lot of prayers from now on thinking of this post. 'moisture' hahaha!

Liz H. said...

oh man... that and "every fiber of my being."