It seems to me on reviewing all this (and having been away) that tacit understandings are best left tacit. There are different reasons different people have for keeping prayer threads to a minimum: the perils of cheapening them, leaving them open to abuse by thoughtless people, and the fact that some people find them offensive. We have people here who take prayer seriously: and some of those people think that prayer threads trivialize prayer, and some of those people think that they are a valid extension of prayer!! The people who argue the most are ironically the people who take their notions of prayer most seriously. There is absolutely no way of adjudicating this.

What we have found over time is that serious calls for prayer from Mudcatters in trouble are appropriate for threads, though the e-mail route is open and maybe preferable. Denying the need for care of whatever kind to members of this community in trouble is not what we are about. If Joe Offer asks me to paint myself blue because it will save his life, my question is: peacock or navy? If katlaughing says that she will not survive until tomorrow unless I paint myself red, my question is: fire engine or geranium? But beyond that level, it all gets entangled in all kinds of different views and interpretations about what is serious, what the right venu is and so on.

It seems to me that Mudcatters in general, and people in this thread in particular, have a pretty good sense of what is a serious need, and the limits and appropriate vehicles in practice. There are always a few jerks, but they get bored. We are pretty good at self-limiting and keeping out of each other's hot spots. It is when we start articulating and defending what we believe those limits are, should be, and why, that we get on each other's nerves.

yours, Peter T.