In the last couple of days I have received several versions my "favorite" form of communication. The email chain letter. You know the ones. Regardless of the message, its function is to circulate around the Ethernet to everyone on your email list. The only difference between this and a computer virus is the willing participation in its circulation by the participants. The message always promises some result if you send it to friends and a curse if you do not. The language differs but it generally says something like this:

"Send this email to 5 people and you will have a good day, 10 people and you will have a fantastic day, send it to 25 people and they will ask to become the CEO of Google."

Then it continues with first hand endorsements and the twinge of a threat. "I know a guy who sent this letter to 1000 people. Two weeks later he won 8 gold medals at the Olympics, it was Michael Phelps. " Then there's the threat, "My sister knows a guy who thought he didn't have time to send this message around after receiving it, so he didn't. Last week he was hit by the Budwiser wagon and trampled to death by Clydesdales. "

One chain letter promised me that if I sent it around to at least 10 people, my phone would ring. I have to tell you, my phone rings almost every day. Sometimes many times in a single day, and it doesn't seem to be waiting on me to contact 10 friends with a letter I didn't write.

I am logical enough to know that sending emails does not create gold medals, but I am depressive and superstitious enough to believe that their is a Budwiser wagon out there with my name on it. So usually these chain letter emails only cause me to be anxious. I can't win either way. If I do send it to my friends, I am afraid it will put them in the same superstitious dilemma, if I don't... here come the Clydesdales singing "this Bud's for you".

Today I got what is probably the most interesting chain letter I have ever received. It is a chain- letter prayer for prosperity. An appeal to God himself to send his financial abundance to us the struggling. I don't know anyone right now who doesn't fell the need for a divine financial boost, and I am a true believer in prayer, so I took a second look at this one.

If you believe that grammar matters to the Omniscient, this prayer is well constructed and nicely written. It was typed in a huge red font, so God doesn't need his reading glasses, and it was devoid of any references to specific religions so as to be piously and politically correct. I am sure this prayer can make it from Heaven's mail room, past the first angelic assistant to the Big Guy himself (or herself... just covering my bases).

So now my anxiety extends to religious guilt. Who wants to offend God in these times of financial hardship? I mean after you're hit by a Budwiser wagon who wants to be standing at the Pearly Gates with an unsent email on your conscience? I looked for some loophole, some clause that would let me get the benefits of the financial rewards without the actual work and annoyance of sending the prayer on to others. That's when I noticed, at the bottom of the email that has been forwarded hundreds of times, "click on" links to advertisements. There were nine of them. Nine different sponsors for God's blessings. Everything from TMZ to AOL. (God obviously has a preference for three letter acronyms) I suspect the major recipients of these Celestial ble$$ings are the sponsors who get their ads sent around to all your friends for free.

So rather than perpetuate a viral ad campaign in the name of the Almighty, I decided to take my chances and not circulate the email. But know this. Even without a specific prayer, I wish you all the prosperity, wealth, happiness and success that God has for you. I don't think God is waiting around to receive some well written petition before he grants his goodness to you or any of us. Just as He is not waiting around for us to remind Him to make the sun come up or the vegetables grow. It is generally not the best idea to tell your boss how to do his job especially when he has been doing that job successfully for a little over an eternity. The bottom line is: if this really is the magic prayer for all our financial woes, and God is waiting to receive this prayer before sending the mortgage check for this month, shouldn't we be emailing it to God rather than to each other?

As you were,
Jay