LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
February 25, 2016
PLAYER OF THE WEEK
March 3, 2016
When Beryl Amedee gave up her seat on the Terrebonne Parish Council to pursue a new path of public service via the Louisiana House of Representatives, she expected that her head-on approach to government issues would make some people unhappy at one point or another.
Her style on the council was generally to call a club a club or a jack a jack, and there is no reason to believe this would change. Indeed, it is likely why a lot of folks voted to send Beryl to Baton Rouge.
An invitation to provide the opening prayer for a House floor session, it turns out, fulfilled the prophecy of likely strain in a big way, among some fellow lawmakers. Beryl’s prayer was so rankling to some that she is convinced it is the reason her first bill – a law that would have made provisions for Louisiana in its time of need to have a mechanism for accepting contributions from people wanting to help out – was soundly voted down. It is traditional in the House for a new member’s first bill, if innocuous enough, to be allowed passage as a token of welcome. Conversations with a few House members – and Beryl herself – indicate as much.
Beryl began her entreaty to the Almighty with an acknowledgment that He loves Louisiana, having blessed it with “abundant resources, mild weather and rich soil,” as well as remarkable food and music and a people “warm and hospitable, passionate and resilient.”
Beryl then related the parable from Matthew 25, wherein a wealthy man entrusts three servants with assets during his absence. When he returned, two of the servants were rewarded for taking good care of everything. The third, who didn’t perform such a good job, had all his stuff taken away.
“This parable teaches us that God entrusts us with things, and what we do with what he gives us determines whether we will be given more or not,” Beryl told the Legislature. “We, as a state Legislature over the past years – spanning decades – have been derelict in what he has given us. We have been unfaithful in properly stewarding the resources and finances that he has bestowed upon Louisiana.”
“We as a state are now experiencing the consequences of the poor choices of the past,” Beryl continued. “We as a Legislature in this special session have been presented with an opportunity. We have to decide what to do with what we’ve been given – what little of it remains anyway. Today, right now, in this moment, I want to invite those in this room who know the Lord to stand in the gap with me before God and confess the sin of our government’s bad stewardship to God and ask Him for forgiveness. If God says, ‘I forgive you’ and I believe He will because forgiveness is his response to prayers of repentance, then a new chapter can be written starting with the actions we take during this session.”
Invoking Jeremiah, Beryl said that foundations of bad government can be “torn down and plucked up and new foundations could be built and planted.”
That was the preamble. The prayer was, “Father, we come before you with hearts of thanksgiving for the abundance You’ve provided to Louisiana throughout history. As representatives, standing in the position of responsibility and authority You ordained, we humbly bow our hearts in repentance for the years of poor stewardship of the finances of this state.
“We ask for your forgiveness and cleansing from the old ways of deceit and corruption in setting our state budget; we ask for Your guidance as we come together to work on this daunting task before us; and we ask not for Louisiana to be restored to ways of long ago, but instead for Louisiana to be made new according to Your sovereign plan. We lift all these petitions up to You in accordance with Your Word and in the name of Your son, our savior and lord, Jesus. Amen.”
Reflecting during a later conversation, Beryl said it was not a prayer of accusation, that those offended by it “may have not paid much attention.”
The theology involved here is at least as weighty as the politics. Beryl noted the words of a supporter, who said the very nature of prayer is to intercede on behalf of those “who sinned but never saw their need for forgiveness.” Jesus Christ, upon whose life, death and teachings Christian faith is based, it was noted, “died for sin he never committed.”
In this sense, perhaps, Beryl’s prayer was an appeal to humility. And perhaps that’s not such a bad place to start. •
