- CUTTING A RUG WITH JESUS!:

Long post so take a few deep breaths and make sure that your coffee is good and hot.

I received a letter in the mail from an organization called, "St. Mathews". Within the letter there were three sheets of paper, one was basically testimonials from people around the country. The other sheet contained instructions and a checklist, and the last sheet was something called a "Prayer Rug."

This prayer rug when you unfold it, is a colorful drawing of Jesus' head in the middle of a rug with his eyes closed. On the bottom of the "Rug" (mind you its a large piece of paper that has been folded up to fit in an envelope, nothing resembling a real rug since its just an 8x10 piece of paper) there is writing which says:

"Look into Jesus' eyes you will see they are closed. But as you continue to look you will see His eyes opening and looking back into your eyes. Then go and be alone and kneel on this Rug of Faith or touch it to both of your knees. Then please check your needs on our letter to you. Please return this praryer rug, do not keep it."

The drawing of his face basically acts as a slight optical allusion that can look like his eyes are either opened or closed. I think the best part of this entire sham is the fact they want you to send the rug back to them..I mean I don't get it unless they are just trying to convey the importance of this rug and that it can't be kept.

A few testimonials:
"God blessed me with over $5,000"
"God made it possible for us to buy 17 acres of Land"
"The Lord has healed my Throat!"

And the checklist has several options you can check. It says, "Pray for my family and me for..."
- My soul
- A closer walk with Jesus
- My children
- A better job
- To stop a bad habit
- A new car
- I want to be saved
- Pray for god to bless me with this amount of money $________

They actually leave that last one blank so you can ask god for whatever amount you want..how nice. But the thing is they have one line on the checklist that says, "Enclosed is my seed gift to God's work of $___________"

So I assume that is where you are paying for the rug.. But I didn't really find a specific name to make out the check but maybe its just to St Mathews Church. Who knows.

All I know is that I did in fact send them a letter back saying:

Dear St. Mathews Church,

First let me thank you for sending me the Jesus Prayer rug. There is a problem though. I did indeed pray on the rug and like instructed went to go "Be alone with myself," afterwards. The problem is that while I was out of the room, I came back to find that my cat had peed on the Prayer Rug. I tried to clean and dry it the best I could but I think it's beyond repair, would you still like me to mail it back to you?

God bless

Daniel from NYC