You asked for it
As I drove into work this morning in the rain, again, my thoughts went back to a dry day in November 2007. That day the governor of the state of Georgia, Sonny Perdue, joined lawmakers and ministers at the Capitol Building to pray for rain. Naturally, this brought the question of church vs. state and made headlines worldwide. I think more than the religious connotations, it also brought up the idea of looking to mystical ideas to change natural events outside of our direct control. Why not do a rain dance or start some human sacrifices while we’re at it?
God was apparently slow in answering that prayer as the rains didn’t return in force until fall of 2009. And, boy howdy, did the rains return! Much of North Georgia had what was categorized as 500-year flooding in October. Rehearsals for a show I was in at the time were canceled due to rain, something I’ve never experienced before. Since October, we’ve had regular rain, and will probably continue to have rain through the spring. This is all thanks to El Niño, which means “the boy” in Spanish. I’m thinking of petitioning for a name change to El Bastardo.
Anyway, I was thinking of all of this on my morning commute. Apparently, I’m the only one as that prayer meeting in 2007 seems to be old news. No one is blaming the governor for the flooding and non-stop rain. I wonder if we had only received moderate rainfall, bringing Lake Lanier up to full pool over time instead of overnight, would people have praised Perdue for “taking action” in 2007? Is the only reason no one is linking the increase in rain to that prayer because of how destructive the rain has been, because that couldn’t possibly be what God would do, could it? I’m not sure what logical fallacy that might fall into, maybe a form of confirmation bias, it’s just something I find interesting.
As for me, I do blame the governor for all this rain, not because I think the prayer did anything at all, but just because I can. Well, that and he threatens to veto any law allowing Sunday alcohol sales, but that’s a whole different story.

