State: A prayer to bless the busyness of the Florida Legislature

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A prayer to bless the busyness of the Florida Legislature

By Times Staff Writer
Published April 7, 2005

The Florida Senate begins each day with a prayer. The Rev. Donald L. Roberts, president and CEO of Goodwill Manasota, departed from the usual solemnity Wednesday by injecting some humor about the realities of legislating:

Holy and eternal God,

Well, here we are again Lord, another session, another day, another opening prayer, and then we are off to the busyness of the business of brokering the deals that get the votes that accumulates the majorities that creates the legislation that the House will surely screw up and the governor may veto and the people of Florida may have a constitutional amendment initiative to remind us who is really in charge.

Medicaid is eating our $400-million lunch and Gov. Bush wants it solved today, school classroom size amendments are creating a crush of capital needs we haven't begun to figure out how to fund, and a tsunami of population growth and rising real estate prices are making our growth management practices obsolete.

Sen. (Lisa) Carlton has to manage the money and Sen. (Mike) Bennett has a point of view of the Scripps Institute water supply and President (Tom) Lee has to manage the unruly process and Sen. (Jim) King is happy to be a has-been president.

So Lord, please be patient with us, when our tempers flare, we don't get enough sleep, we eat all the wrong things and we are picked to death by the lobbyists.

For Lord, we come to this place to do the business of the people of Florida; and in their name we welcome You to this Senate, to this session and into the midst of all our efforts to discern and do Your will; through this thing we call politics.