Mid-Week Meditation: Where's the Prayer in...

The United States is certainly a proud country with a proud people and a proud history. We invented baseball and the Ford truck. We were the first to put a human on the moon. We have barbecue and apple pie. We have the Brooklyn accent, the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the Bronx cheer. We have Dr. King, Dr. Oz, Dr. Pepper and Dr. Dre. We have Coney Island and the Isle of Manhattan. We have Bill Gates, Bill Clinton and the Bill of Rights. We have, well, you get the point. The United States has quite a bit of which to be proud.


But, this country also has many embarrassing, shameful moments historically speaking. And, I don't mean shameful like "Jersey Shore" or Pauly Shore shameful. I mean shameful. This country, for the better part of 200 years allowed humans with melanin in their skin to be sold into slavery, lynched, beaten, raped and abused. It facilitated a segregation of those people for decades, and has sometimes turned its back on the needs of its most vulnerable citizens.

And today, we acknowledge the tenth anniversary of the opening of the Guantanamo Bay detention center. Opened at the direction of president George W. Bush, it was to house the meanest, most vile and abusive terror suspects in the world. Many of the 800 individuals detained there in the decade Guantanamo Bay was open for business, were held indefinitely without a single hearing or court appearance. While the detention center has been "closed," nearly 200 people still remain there.

Guantanamo Bay is infamous because leaders of our country stood by, silently, while U.S. military and officials beat, tortured and humiliated the people detained at the center.

I certainly remember president Bush saying repeatedly that he was a Christian and that he did not make any decisions without prayer to the Creator and reflection. I want to know on the tenth anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo Bay detention center, was this one of those decisions soaked in prayer?

Now, this isn't my Kayne moment--I'm not accusing president Bush of not caring about any one class of people. I am merely asking did he pray about the decision to open this center, and if he did, how did that shape his decision to open what will be a shameful moment in our country's history.