Few pieces of Christian internet folklore have travelled further than the poem below. Versions of it have circulated for years, attributed at different times to schoolchildren in different states, which makes the original author impossible to pin down with any confidence. What has kept it in circulation isn’t its authorship, though, but the question it puts plainly: what does it cost a young person to hold onto faith in a public space that increasingly treats belief as something to be managed rather than expressed?
Now I sit down in school
Where praying is against the rule
For this great nation under God
Finds mention of Him very odd.If scripture now the class recites,
It violates the U.S. Bill of Rights.
And at anytime my head I bow
It will become a Federal matter now.For praying in a public hall
Might offend someone with no faith at all.
In silence alone we must meditate,
As God’s name is prohibited by the State.But the Ten Commandments are not allowed,
No word of God must reach any crowd.It’s scary here I must confess,
When chaos reigns the school’s a mess.
So, Lord, this silent plea I make,
Should I be shot; my soul please take!
Amen.
Whatever its origin, the poem’s popularity says something real about how many Christian families feel: caught between a country that protects freedom of belief in principle and a public square that can feel awkward, even hostile, toward belief in practice. The Lord’s Prayer itself asks for something far less complicated than any culture-war argument: daily bread, forgiveness, and deliverance from evil. It remains available to anyone, in or out of school, whenever they choose to pray it quietly for themselves.
Follow Jamaica Homes on Youtube @jamaicahomes and Instagram @jamaica_homes and on Facebook @jamaicahomesnews Send us a message or email us at onlinefeedback@jamaica-homes.com or editor@jamaica-homes.com
Visit our YouTube Community ↗