ecumenical and nondenominational,<\/em> so no Jews, Catholics or Muslims. One Asian woman but no black or brown people. The main Scripture was the 107th Psalm, and the prayers were sincere and neutral.<\/p>\nBesides the leaders, the military, and families and children overall, the media and the economy were also deliberate foci. The media prayer was for fair and accurate reporting, and for responsible entertainers (mass media not just news media). Hard to mock that.<\/p>\n
This year’s theme — I saw it on the national Web site, too — was “God Shed His Grace on Thee,” a line of course from “America the Beautiful,” which we sang toward the end.<\/p>\n
It gave me an image: a Godshed, like a woodshed or tool shed. How big would it be? Does God work in a Godshed or does God store stuff in a Godshed? What exactly would be in it? Would it need sweeping out like my sheds always have? -30-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Thursday, May 5, 2005. I attended one of the things I thought I’d never see, a National Day of Prayer service at noon today. I participated in one of the sets. As a member of the Bella Vista Recorder Consort, I played on tenor recorder a traditional “Grace” melody and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[36],"class_list":["post-148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-culture","tag-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":48,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/01\/ex-executive-privilege\/","url_meta":{"origin":148,"position":0},"title":"Ex-executive privilege","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"January 17, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Monday, January 17, 2005: Days ago, George II brought in George the First and Bill Clinton to lead private fund-raising for the south Asian tsunami disaster of 12\/26\/04. This is life imitating art! \"Saturday Night Live\" has a periodic cartoon by one of its staffers--\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2609,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2011\/01\/peg-o-my-heart\/","url_meta":{"origin":148,"position":1},"title":"PEG o’ My Heart","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"January 10, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Last year, which is to say 11 days ago, Brick described the local cable company as reneging on its agreement with area governments by moving the local access channels from its cheapest tiers, analog cable, to the more costly digital ones. This posting provoked interest among Facebook friends. They gave\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Body, Home, Street"","block_context":{"text":"Body, Home, Street","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/body-home-street\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1575,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2009\/09\/school-tax-tables\/","url_meta":{"origin":148,"position":2},"title":"School Tax Tables","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"September 4, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"No More Foolin' for Schoolin' Brick by current policy does not give political endorsements. Now that the Fayetteville School District's high school plan is set for a public vote, in about 10 days, all I should do is create a nice neutral analysis. Yawn. Better: Just lay out some facts,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Brick Bats Reportage"","block_context":{"text":"Brick Bats Reportage","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/brick-bats-reportage\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":132,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/07\/a-block-is-not-a-brick\/","url_meta":{"origin":148,"position":3},"title":"A block is not a brick","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"July 13, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Wednesday, July 13, 2005. So what I do is just admit my fear. Look at this gap in time: days since the last Brick, feels like a month. Why? A lack of topics as well as a lack of opinions? No. It was the feeling\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technical Difficulties"","block_context":{"text":"Technical Difficulties","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/briefs\/technical-difficulties\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":135,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/07\/cant-see-the-lights\/","url_meta":{"origin":148,"position":4},"title":"Can’t see the lights","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"July 5, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Tuesday, July 5, 2005: For a few weeks, newspaper house ads and broadcast public service announcements have proclaimed that the city of Fayetteville would host a Fourth of July celebration at Baum Stadium of the University of Arkansas. It would succeed the ones held for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Body, Home, Street"","block_context":{"text":"Body, Home, Street","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/body-home-street\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":118,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/03\/promisespromises1\/","url_meta":{"origin":148,"position":5},"title":"PromisesPromises1","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"March 7, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Monday, March 7, 2005. Testing, 1, 2, 3. Testing 1-2-3. Is this thing on? Is this up? Hello? Hellooo! Damn. Maybe try again in a day or two. -30-","rel":"","context":"In "Technical Difficulties"","block_context":{"text":"Technical Difficulties","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/briefs\/technical-difficulties\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2736,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions\/2736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}