Mr. D and The Vice Versa Prayer

Tomorrow is caucus day in MN so it is only fitting that I tell the story of Mr. D and the vice versa prayer. (By the way, I googled and it is not visa versa, it is indeed vice versa, but I digress.)

For the last umpteen years, we have faithfully gone to our precinct caucus and for the last umpteen years been elected delegates. (At our caucus, pretty much everyone who shows up, plus a few who don't, get elected delegates).

Anyhoo, once elected you head to the senate district caucus a few weeks later and then the county convention. This is where my story picks up. County convention. 1992 is most likely the year. Perhaps 1996.

For many years, Mr. D's pastor brother Leroy was a delegate. Being a pastor and a delegate, he was often asked to give the invocation. However, at this particular convention, he was not present. The moderators looked over their names, found a Dugan, figured that any old Dugan could pray, and asked Mr. D to offer the invocation that evening.

Mr. D had a few minutes to think about what he wanted to pray about and the verse Micah 6:8 came to mind.

He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

He decided to build his prayer around that verse. You know, pray something like we would choose candidates that would stand for justice, but not at the expense of mercy, and stand for mercy, but not at the expense of justice. Brilliant prayer idea.

When it was his turn to pray, he approached the microphone, surrounded by various political dignitaries. He began to pray.

Unfortunately, as he prayed, his words began to echo around the room and he suddenly found the words mercy and justice flying back at him. Mercy, mercy, mercy, justice, justice, justice, mercy, justice, mercy...

He was halfway through his prayer and he couldn't remember what he had said. Had he said the part about justice not being at the expense of mercy, or mercy not being at the expense of justice. He knew he'd said one of them. The problem was, which one.

Thinking quickly on his feet, he came up with the only solution that could guarantee that he wouldn't repeat himself. And, he said the immortal words "vice versa" in his prayer.

So, it ended up something like this, "Lord, help us choose candidates that stand for justice, but not at the expense of mercy, and vice versa....Amen."

We now love to remind him of his famous "Vice versa prayer".

He doesn't think anyone really noticed what he prayed. Most, he concluded, were just waiting to get back to the bar.

However, we got to thinking about phrases that shouldn't be used in prayers. Here are a few, can you think of any others.

1.) "etc." Never insert the word "etc." in a list of names of people you are praying for.

2.) "yada, yada, yada" Definitely not appropriate.

3.) "and so forth and so on"

Oh, and while you are thinking of other phrases to not use in prayers, Mr. D says that next time he has to pray before a large group like that, he will have his prayer written down.