1 Boring Old Man

Putting faith in call for rain
^{Service Tuesday gathers religious, political leaders to pray for precipitation, but not everyone buys into it.}

When you pray for rain, says Rockefeller "Rocky" Twyman, be specific. Earlier this month, the former Atlantan flew south from his Rockville, Md., home to help organize a prayer vigil and gospel concert for drought relief at the Berean Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Atlanta. Hundreds showed up. And their prayers were answered. After the service was over, heavy showers came down — on the green fields of Rockville, Md., that is.

"I guess we prayed for rain and it came up here," Twyman said from his home up north. "It was raining when our plane touched down." Nonetheless, said the public relations executive and musician, "I think the governor is on the right track."

That would be Gov. Sonny Perdue, who has asked Georgians to pray for rain today, and at lunchtime will convene with various religious and political leaders on the steps of the state Capitol to seek divine intervention in the state’s months-long drought. Desperate times, it’s said, call for desperate measures. And with Lake Lanier growing grass instead of bass, we’re definitely in desperate times…

After the last prayer vigil for rain, it poured

Gov. Sonny Perdue can only hope his prayer vigil for rain today is as successful as the one another governor held on a Sunday morning in the summer of 1986. The state was going through a historic drought that year, and then-Gov. Joe Frank Harris sent out a proclamation asking for Georgians to pray for rain. Hundreds of congregations statewide appealed to heavens for relief.

Harris, like Perdue a religious man, was scheduled to be at Roswell Street Baptist Church that July 27. The governor and his family knelt with hundreds of worshipers as the Rev. Nelson Price asked the congregation to pray for land that "is literally sick in need of rain." When asked about that service last week, Harris said: "You could feel the spirit of the Lord was there."

After the vigil, he walked out of the church with Price and was surrounded by members of the media. Do you believe the praying would do any good? they asked. "I said, ‘Yes, I believe in prayer and I believe the Lord is going to answer these prayers,’ " Harris recalled. "I hadn’t any more than got that out of my mouth when big drops of water fell on the sidewalk. "It was a miracle. "It didn’t rain much that day, but the next week, it started raining. We had several weeks of almost daily rains," Harris said "People started calling the governor’s office saying, ‘Ya’ll turned this water on, we’ve had enough!’ "

One thing certain. If it doesn’t rain today or tomorrow, that proves beyond the shadow of any doubt that we need another Democratic Governor to lead our rain dances.

Hmm. Almost looks like lots of people and concrete cause droughts…

Perdue asks crowd to ‘pray up a storm’
Drought is message from God to conserve better, governor says

Gov. Sonny Perdue wasn’t the least bit discouraged Tuesday after his hourlong state Capitol prayer vigil for rain ended with the sun shining through what had been a somewhat cloudy morning. "God can make it rain tomorrow, he can make it rain next week or next month," Perdue told reporters who asked him if a miracle was on the way.

More than 250 faithful Georgians joined Perdue outside the Capitol to ask for divine intervention to end the historic drought. "We come here very reverently and respectfully to pray up a storm," Perdue told those in attendance.

About a dozen TV cameras representing local and national stations and more than a dozen print reporters and photographers captured the ceremony. At one point a TV helicopter threatened to drown out much of the sound. The Rev. Gil Watson, pastor of Northside United Methodist Church, urged those in attendance to "pray believing we should have all brought umbrellas.

"We have not been good stewards of our land. We have not been good stewards of our water," he said. "Lord, have mercy on your people, have mercy on us and grant us rain. Oh God, let rain fall on this land of Georgia."There were none of the dramatics of 1986, when then-Gov. Joe Frank Harris remembers that drops started falling right after a prayer service held in hopes of quenching that era’s historic drought.But the National Weather Service said there was a fair chance that some light rain might fall in North Georgia on Wednesday.