'Lord, let them buy lots of Xmas cake'

Al Kennedy, Guardian News Service, London

As some of you may be aware, I am a minister (ordained by mail) of many years' standing. I try to maintain a fitting humility in my reverend position, but at this special, commercially sensitive time of year, I must do my part.

We are poised on the brink of that sparkly season, when all good souls should be thinking of increasing their overdrafts, scrimmaging merrily with their neighbor over the latest Harry Potter piercing kit or Gandalf-flavored suppositories -- and then drinking and gorging themselves into unconsciousness in the company of relatives they despise but physically resemble in a way that's really irritating when they think about it.

We might all want to take a moment now for prayer. So...

"Dear Lord, please help us to maintain consumer spending at appropriate levels and send us, even as the Gadarene swine, squealing and rooting through the blessed malls and toy barns of our land. Let us not bring forth the brimstone of a recession. Maintain our faith in the rightness of overconsumption, the shininess of new electrical goods and the wonders of wastefulness."

"Lead us not into recycling, nor into reflections upon our mortality -- even though Thou knowest that, frankly, we are all a bit leery of traveling in planes, trains, buses, cruise-control cars and the London subway system. What with all the poisons and bugs about and shadowy foes who may try to slay us, Thou mightiest forgive us for thinking we're all going to die some day. And why shouldn't we be a bit less materialistic, make time for each other, where would be the harm...? Keep us strong, Lord."

"And, Lord, help us be kind to Americans. There is, verily, nothing nicer than a nice American -- the depth of his (or her) niceness shall be like unto the length of a very long piece of string, or stretchy raiment."

"Let us judge separately (as sheep and goats) Americans and the acts of their Pharisees and CIA-adduces who keep them roughly as uninformed as Samson when he was napping and was given a number one - cut by that sly bint - Thou recallest the one we mean. Let us send them press cuttings about Nike and Microsoft and Indonesia, Bush and Saudi bin Laden, David Hasselhoff and all the myriad other reasons for nations to look upon them sometimes as if they were a badly oozing leper -- the kind who leaves toes everywhere."

"Remind us that we must defend them in their adoration of capital and join them in their contemplation of the lovely upwards and downwards bounces of share prices, because they are sweet as the warbling of angels or as breasts which resemble pomegranates, or doves -- although we have to point out, Lord, that if any of Thy female flock actually had breasts in that state they'd be sore afraid and journey to a oncologist right swiftly -- forgive our presumption."

"Let us, also, not share the smugness of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego -- Thou knowest where that got them in the end. Let us recall our arms exports (second only unto those of the nice Americans), our suspect foreign policy, our Pharaoh Tony Blair and his advisers who bring sore plagues upon many and who are preachy about our sins which are fairly small, comparatively, and who are like unto dogs returning to their own vomit -- only more like unto the vomit, really."

"Indeed, we take this opportunity to repent very greatly that we have not roasted the Great Blair and all his minions inside a golden bull, or a great white dome and then scattered them to the winds -- this being a righteous act, given that their remains would hopefully drift towards Ireland or the Low Countries and cause no contamination at home."

"We repent, too, that we collaborate with Europe like unto a sodomize with Balaam's Ass, although Lord (Thou seest all) they're not exactly without stain themselves and, in Heaven's name (sorry), they're constantly throwing shekels into schemes that any reasonable sinner would wax wrath against. Still, it's not all bad -- talk about consumption -- we help Europe eat a third of the whole world's fish and to despoil stocks wherever we can -- and we remember Thou hast an almighty soft spot for fishermen."

"Lord, don't grant us the power to consider that Thou mightiest have designed Thy creation in such a way that if we carry on as we have been, we'll either smite each other into ashes and dust, or poison our own wells and scatter our own flocks and generally piss into the wind in the way Thou told Noah he shouldn't, until we'd be lucky to have enough energy to get up a half-decent wailing and grinding of teeth."

"And, at this time for families and loved ones, defend us from any thoughts that we have spent a goodly portion of this year killing, terrifying and bringing low a great multitude of other people's families and loved ones, either by our acts or our omissions, but certainly through our own, deliberate faults. Sweet Lord, don't bring us to our senses. Amen."