A Hindu priest was asked to give a prayer in the U.S. Senate yesterday. This was the first time a non-Christian prayer was said in the Senate and a couple of fundamentalist nut jobs took issue with that fact. Members of the anti-abortion group Operation Save America yelled really intelligent things like, “Lord Jesus, forgive us father for allowing a prayer of the wicked, which is an abomination in your sight.” and “This is an abomination. We shall have no other gods before You.” but apparently the Lord Jesus must have been out getting Starbucks just then because the Hindu priest was still standing there when the protesters were removed.
Visibly shaken, Rajan Zen read passages from the Rig Veda and the Bhagavad Gita.
“Let us pray,” he began, “We meditate on the transcendental glory of the deity supreme, who is inside the heart of the earth, inside the life of the sky and inside the soul of heaven. May he stimulate and illuminate our minds.
“Lead us from the unreal to real, from darkness to light, and from death to immortality. May we be protected together. May we be nourished together. May we work together with great vigor. May our study be enlightening.”
Maybe if those protesters had called on the Baby Jesus, who I understand can get really testy if his swaddling clothes aren’t changed in a timely fashion, they might have been able to get Rajan smitten.
When did the floor of the Senate become a place of worship?
It isn’t, but they’ve always said a prayer before they open a session. This time it happened to be a Hindu prayer.