Well, we’re making the national news again. 

Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin has officially proclaimed Oct. 13 “Oilfield Prayer Day” to raise awareness for the state’s declining oil industry. Here’s her official signed proclamation:

I’m not actually all that horrified by a 21st century government executive issuing a call for strictly denominational prayer on behalf of private industry. Using the power of the state on behalf of a narrow band of acceptable theology and sacrificing all else on the altar of our fiscal overlords is alarmingly normal in Oklahoma these days. 

I find it more interesting all the things that HAVEN’T merited a call for prayer on her part.

Our public schools are under enormous strain as a result of years of budget cuts and inane legislation. Teachers are fleeing Oklahoma en masse. Kids are suffering, and the entire system faces catastrophic failure soon if nothing changes. 

No prayer for any of that. 

We’ve all but eliminated mental health care throughout the state. DHS is operating at below skeleton-crew status, and health care in general is a fetish exclusive to the upper middle class. 

No prayer for any of those people, either. 

Our racial issues were recently exposed yet again, and while Tulsans prayed, none of it came at the behest of the Governor. 

I didn’t really expect us to ask God’s thoughts on calls from sitting legislators to round up Muslims or prevent gay kids from using the bathroom. I’d be surprised if we had a statewide day of prayer over the implications of our collective gun fetish, despite the rather predictable results nation-wide. 

One might hope, however, that we’d at least muster a token effort to pray for children in poverty, or widows without families to provide for them. Maybe pretend for just 24 hours that there’s some concern about our overflowing prison population, our pregnancy rates, or our lingering drug problems. 

But no.

There’s only one thing deserving of a collective cry to the Almighty. As Tom Beddow, coordinator of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma’s Oil Patch Chaplains ministry, explains:

The greatest need of the faith community is to develop a broken-hearted compassion for the oilfield and related industries. This is the type of compassion described in Neh. 1:1-5.

Make sure you look up that passage. It will leave you even more confused.

In other news, something called the “Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma’s Oil Patch Chaplains” apparently exists. Who knew?

October 13th is going to be a busy day. It’s hot on the heels of Sleep Apnea Awareness Day, and already part of Plasma Awareness Week AND Domestic Violence Awareness Month, all per Gov. Fallin’s proclamations. It’s additionally designated by Fallin as “Wear Purple” Day, which I guess is something you do when you kinda care, but not enough to, say… pray for those involved.

So come Thursday, make sure you’ve worn your CPAP mask overnight and get up early to spend some time being aware of plasma before putting on your best purple outfit and heading to that pancake breakfast where you’ll “Pray for the Patch.” If you notice any widows or orphans along the way, or run into any overworked educators or social workers, cross over to the other side of the road so as not to be distracted on your most holy journey. 

Our Father, which art into petroleum, recomplete be Thy Name. Thy gusher come, Thy well deepen, in Ellis as it is in Texas…

Also in Oklahoma news this week, The Oklahoman reports this week that “Most Oklahomans who drop out of school do so for two surprising reasons.”

“Surprising,” as it’s used here, means “melodramatic, fabricated nonsense.” 

Natalie Shirley, who The Oklahoman calls our “Oklahoma secretary of education and workforce development,” but who the internet thinks is currently President of OSU-OKC, spoke at something called the Oklahoma Works State Summit (surely a future winner of the coveted “Most Ironically Named Conventions” Award) in OKC this past week. 

Shirley told summiteers that “many students drop out of high school because of bullying and never return. She urged Oklahoma public schools to recognize the significance of the problem and do more to solve it.”

That sound you hear is your intuitive “b.s. detector” going off. 

I’m not trivializing the impact of actual school bullying any more than I’d mock the power of actual prayer, but the suggestion that most kids who drop out of school do so because they’re being bullied is about as plausible as the suggestion that God’s number one concern in reference to Oklahoma is how those oil fields are doing. 

It’s contrary to all personal experience as well as any other study along similar lines of which I’m aware. There’s little information about this “study,” but it sounds like someone merely contacted a few hundred high school dropouts and asked why they bailed. 

Surprisingly, most don’t seem to have identified anything they could have done differently as a factor. It wasn’t laziness or drugs or pregnancy or family dysfunction. It wasn’t even lack of a relevant curriculum, bad teachers, or any of the other usual excuses for why kids aren’t sufficiently amused by education. 

Nope. They were all victims. There’s shocker number two – there’s a correlation between people who quit and people who are pretty sure it’s all someone else’s fault. 

No doubt you see the appeal of this faux trauma for The Oklahoman – it’s one more thing public schools are doing wrong. One more thing that sucks about those stupid Oklahoma teachers. Those poor children… all bullied and uncared for. 

If only they’d had access to vouchers, maybe we could have saved a few of them…

“We’ve got to do a better job of stopping bullying, whether it’s in schools or online,” Shirley said. “Common education, you must double down on this issue to resolve it.”

I don’t even know what that would look like. Harsher punishments for bullies? (Irony, anyone?) Or maybe just more “Care-Ins” held in the gymnasium instead of all those silly core subjects? 

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The reason evolves by post-secondary. THOSE kids “drop out because of a family emergency or crisis of some kind, the study also found.”

A crisis, like, say… yet another study cranking out clickbait bullsh*t to be spread joyfully by people in power who should know better? That would certainly derail me. 

Again – of course there are real tragedies. Unavoidable circumstances. But are those at the top of the list for why not everyone finishes college or trade school?

Seriously?

And again, it’s the school’s fault. They’re not doing enough to call those students. To make them feel noticed. To treat them like they’re still in high school – which, come to think of it, wouldn’t be such a good thing after all – what with all the bullying and everything. 

Finally, the Whole Stupid Clown Thing…

Which I’m not going to even talk about. Because it’s that stupid. 

It did, however, remind me of a mediocre Bill Murray movie with some great moments. There’s some overlap in the clips, and some R-rated language, but I assure you they’re still more fulfilling than praying for oil or blaming bullies for why kids drop out. 

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Be strong, my beloved. If I snap, one of you will have to pick up the blog and press on! More Blue Serials next weekend.