Twice a day, precisely at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., alarms ring on dozens of cell phones, alerting those participating in the Rev. Jim Woodard’s week-old Internet prayer initiative to spend one minute praying for relief from the BP Gulf oil spill.
In Meraux, Cesar Lopez rises each morning at 4:30 a.m. and says the rosary, as he does every day, remembering especially to pray for relief for families stricken economically by the spill.
And in Violet, a coalition of Christian pastors has begun laying plans to pray with out-of-work fishers at least three mornings a week in Shell Beach, Delacroix and Hopedale as the men gather before dawn to learn whether BP will put them to work that day.
“Whatever BP decides to do, that’s down the road,” said Brandy Shelton, who lingered after the Sunday service at Christian Fellowship in Violet.
Hope the leak is stopped soon…….and hope Obama learns that BP employs 23,000 AMericans and pays $4.5bn tax each year in the US (before he attacks it again – hoping people forget his change of policy in favour of drilling……oh, when was that….last month, or the month before??) Oh, and BP is about a third American owned….. but scoring political points can matter most to politicians – especially when they do not know what to do to help in any real way – passing the buck becomes most important. Hope that leak gets plugged – BP, Transocean and the US govt should be working together toget that done as a first priority.