My Father who art in Anniston...

Back in April when the Nascar race visited Talladega, AL, my earthly Father was tapped to say the opening prayer for the "Nationwide" race on Friday afternoon. It's not the main event, which takes place on Sunday, but still a pretty big deal. In preparation, Dad went through countless drafts and revisions, practiced in front of the mirror, and spent countless hours in prayer so that his moment in the spotlight would shine like a beacon unto all the viewers, both in attendance and watching at home on TV.

Unfortunately, this was the week of Taylor's springbreak and Christena, Taylor, and I were in Gulf Shores. As the start time approached, we were sitting in Lulu's Restaurant (which is owned/operated by Jimmy Buffet's sister). Realizing that I'd forgotten to record the race and not wanting to miss his nationally televised prayer, I asked our waitress if she could tune one of the televisions to the Speed Channel. She did...

Mysteriously, like many of the Lord's works I'm told, about 15 minutes before the prayer was scheduled to begin, the heavens opened, not with the glory of God, but with rain. So before Dad was given the opportunity to shower the Nascar Nation with his much rehearsed prayer, the Lord showered the "congregation" to the point that the race, along with my father's prayer, was postponed indefinitely.

Sensing that Dad was quite disappointed that his masterpiece of a prayer would never be unveiled to the hundreds of thousands of spectators in need of his words of enlightenment, I undertook a covert operation. Mom found the original text that he'd planned to read from at the track and forwarded it to me. Sadly, we were unable to determine if the stains on the paper were from his tears of disappointment or from the rain that fell on that fateful day.

Undeterred, and with his prayer in hand, I set out on a mission to find a surrogate minister with not only the ability to perform the prayer with the enthusiasm and fervor that it deserved, but also possessing the poor decision making skills to agree to do it. Thankfully the Lord provided Joe Nelms.

This past weekend Rev. Nelms approached the microphone at the Nashville Nationwide Nascar event and delivered a rousing version of my father's prayer. Dad told me that a couple of his own performances in the shower approached the powerful delivery of Rev. Nelms, but on the whole he was quite pleased with the vessel that I found. Those interested in seeing my father's prayer, as performed by Rev. Nelms, are invited to click here:



In a related note, my Dad's career as a prayer ghostwriter has hit a bit of a rough patch. He thinks it's a by-product of the poor econ0my and not an indictment of his skills. Readers are encouraged to form their own opinion. Thankfully, he has various disaster-relief projects to keep him busy while the prayer consuming public forgets this debacle.

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EDITORS NOTE: Various portions of this post are true. John was scheduled to pray in Talladega, his prayer was rained out, and everything after that might be the product of his son's imagination. Here at the Razor, we've never spent a lot of time worrying about accuracy, whether in content or in spelling.