His hands gripping the pulpit, the reverend proposed a prayer.
	“Lord, humble us before thee.”
	Hear our prayer, the congregants murmured.
	“Let us be a mere molecule of oxygen in the great sky of your Being.”
	Hear our prayer.
	“When we are under the illusion that our lives are stable, let us recall the 
avalanche of 1499 that buried 400 mercenary soldiers at St. Bernard Pass in Switzerland, 
for we are your mercenaries, Lord, and never can know your desires for us.”
	Hear our prayer.
	“When we believe the Richter scales of our lives are at zero, show us our 
arrogance, Lord, and let us bring to mind Tokyo and Yokohama, 1923, where the 8.2 
corrective force of your goodness brought 143,000 souls back into your arms.
	“When we are basking in what we perceive to be the warmth of your dispensation 
let us bring to mind the Coconut Grove night club fire, Boston, 1942, wherein 491 sinners 
were removed from this world of perdition.
	“We are immigrants to the country of your kindness, Lord, but if our hearts are 
not pure, you surely apprise us of it, as we remember 1874, November, when you set 
alight the immigrant vessel Cospatrick off the Cape of Good Hope, your humor not lost 
on us there . . .”
	Hear our prayer, said the parishioners, and began looking at each other.
	“When we are in the metaphorical produce aisles of the world, fingering 
disdainfully the fruits and vegetables you so graciously grant us, let us remember ants, 
Lord—black ants that rose from the earth in great battalions, devoured every vegetable in 
Kach, India, 1791, its heathen residents sinfully resentful, calling Kach a God-forsaken 
place, ants, Lord, for we remember them and remain aware that they are your servants, 
too, and nothing truly is God-forsaken…”
	The pastor left the pulpit, sank to his knees in the sanctuary.
	“And when we are on our death-beds, Lord, being force-fed, let us remember your 
famines and exult: Northern China, 1878, India, 1899, and when we are drooling from the 
sides of our mouths let us praise you and remember decades of drought, and when 
heaving in fever let us recall the Great Sweating Sickness of 1506—London—death 
within three hours—and when we are gasping our last breaths let us recognize that 
you’ve given us those breaths, and recall the ingratitude of decades of buried miners, 
Manchuria, 1931, Rhodesia, 1972—for Lord, your smitings are various and wondrous, 
the Sunderland stampede, 1883, cannibalism in Ireland, 1886, Bulgarian-Greek wars, 
Seventh Crusades, Siege of Vienna, great winds you’ve exalted to the Fifth Category, 
you’ve a plan for us, Lord, you are there for us, even from that universal distance you are 
everywhere, in your Grand Design we implore you, look with favor on us now through 
the windows of the flaming children’s hospitals . . .”
	Hear our prayer, Lord, he said, Oh, hear our prayer, on his hands and knees 
now, his voice muffled in the carpet, his congregants gathering quietly around him.