Have you prayed lately for the folks in the Mid-West? Have you stopped to be grateful that your life and world around you has not been washed away, perhaps forever? I have. I have because a compassionate heart calls for it. I have because they are children of God, my brothers and sisters, those who know it and those who do not. I have because I need something outside my life. I have because prayer is the greatest something a person can do even when she is small and weak and wretched in her own flaws and foibles and worries and fears.