WASHINGTON — Forget Congress. Forget President Bush. About four months ago, frustrated by the apparently immutable laws of supply and demand, Rocky Twyman turned to a higher authority in his quest for cheaper gasoline.
The recent dip in prices, he says, is proof of divine intervention.
"Prayer is the answer to every problem in life," said Twyman, founder of the Pray at the Pump movement, whose members huddle around gas pumps and ask the Almighty to lower gasoline prices.
"If the whole country keeps on praying, we can bring down prices even more, to even less than $2," Twyman said.
On Wednesday, at a Shell station in Washington's Petworth neighborhood, Twyman and eight others linked hands and sang, changing the words of the civil rights anthem "We Shall Overcome" to "We'll have lower gas prices." They prayed for prices to come down -- and for comedian Jay Leno, who joked about them in a monologue last month.
According to AAA, which tracks such matters, the average nationwide price for a gallon of gas Wednesday was $3.78 -- down from $4.10 a month ago, but still 25 cents higher than on April 23.
The prayer group's efforts began that day just a few blocks away, at the soup kitchen of First Seventh-day Adventist Church. When the soup kitchen's volunteers, many of them senior citizens, began talking about cutting back their time because they couldn't afford to drive, Twyman said, "God just impressed me to take them over to the pump, and the rest is history."
Since then Twyman, 59, has crisscrossed the country, praying at pumps from Baltimore to San Francisco and several points in between. His movement has been featured in articles by Agence France-Presse and London's Sunday Telegraph, and he's been interviewed by reporters from Ukraine, Colombia and South Africa, to name a few.
On Wednesday, as Twyman's group sang "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands," Edwin Jones, 50, held $9 in cash -- a five-dollar bill, three ones, three quarters, two dimes and a nickel -- to pay for his gasoline. Jones said he worked about 50 hours a week as a tutor and aquarium maintenance man, driving as much as 95 miles a day, six days a week, and spent about $20 on gas every day.
"I like their idea," Jones said. "Congress, as usual, is divided. Lord, what else can we do?"
Several drivers in the rundown neighborhood -- where there's "a church on every corner," as Twyman put it -- were receptive to the power-of-prayer message, but others remained skeptical.
