Dear Mercurially Merciful Lord:

O Lord, we come before you today because we are sure that, by now, you know that Brother Pat Robertson has turned to you in solemn Christian prayer to righteously beseech you to kill off a few Supreme Court justices that have rudely treated those pesky so-called "gays" with respect. With bracing candor, Brother Pat is calling this a "prayer offensive." Ever helpful in thinking of ways to kill off liberals, Brother Pat hints: ``One justice is 83-years-old, another has cancer and another has a heart condition."

Call us timid, O Lord, but it makes us rather nervous when a man who just went through a bout of prostate cancer thinks it wise to ask his Creator to start going on a killing rampage, targeting people with cancer and heart conditions. After all, who will run the country if you take Dick Cheney from us? We are further concerned that you might respond to Brother Pat's imprecatory prayers in that mischievous, ironic way of Yours and, well, kill him, too. It is with your delicious penchant for technically giving people what they pray for in mind (like when John Kennedy, Jr. screamed, with the coarse impetuousness endemic in Democrats, : "Lord, do something to shut up that damned braying cokehead in Row A!") that we grow concerned for Brother Pat's safety.

If indeed you are mulling over killing Pat again (and, perhaps, ruefully second guessing why you didn't act when you had the chance the first time), we are renewing the prayer we made when you first tried to kill Brother Pat Robertson with prostate cancer:

O Lord, we know that you have your reasons for lifting your veil of protection away from Brother Pat's sinful crotch. Apparently Brother Pat has said or done something to vex you and provoke your famously itchy trigger finger.

While many might assume that it was Brother Pat's profitable career of putting words in your mouth that got under your skin, perhaps, Brother Pat simply looked at you the wrong way. Any reader of the Bible knows that it is difficult to gauge exactly what will set you off. For example, we know that you turned Moses' yenta sister into a leper for simply asking a pesky question you found mildly intrusive, so there is a very good chance that Brother Pat has no idea what oversight led to the Lord turning on him and now wanting him dead.

We recall, O Lord, how you told Oral Roberts years ago that if he didn't come up with one million dollars pronto, you would break his legs and then kill or otherwise inconvenience him. Perhaps, you struck a similar bargain with Brother Pat. Only this time, out of your understandable frustration over Brother Roberts beating you in your own bet, raised the stakes to such lofty levels that it was too much money for even Brother Pat to cough up without having to sell his beloved race horses or investments in Liberian gold mines.

Nevertheless, we ask, O Lord, that you spare Brother Pat from your wrath. In lieu of that, we ask Jesus that you allow Brother Pat's illness to be prolonged enough to allow him to become weepy in scores of telecasts of the 700 Club so that the phone banks will peal like a Christmas carillon, as sobbing homemakers in trailers throughout this glorious land send in cash to your glory!

In your Glorious name Lord Jesus, this I pray.