'Prayers!'

I spent all of my 30's learning about praying. I wasn't in seclusion in a religious order. I learned all this new stuff on the streets, so to speak.

Having been raised in an era and culture where we prayed everyday at school and prayed every night at bedtime, and this having been my experience for 29 years or so, I thought I knew what praying was all about. 

For instance, I believed that public prayers aside, all other prayers were private. They were between you and God and generally speaking, the mention of prayers, or details or prayers, did not make it into conversation. 

You prayed for important things. The Lord's Prayer, was always a good guide if you needed help with what to pray about. Jesus reminded us to pray for our Heavenly Father's Kingdom to be on Earth, just as it is in Heaven. 

Personally, I liked that part, since I figured it made sense to have Heaven on Earth, so everyone could be uniformly taken care of and happy. 

However, it seems praying is now in the domain of nonversation.

We've all seen it or heard it following on from a personal plea or a tragic statement: 'I'll pray for you' or 'I'll pray for them!'

My personal favourite, the shorter version of that statement, as seen posted on Facebook by those who particularly can't be arsed to say anything sincere and spout just the one word: 'prayers!' 

It seems like we have become a culture where those statements are very much disposable, nonversational phrases. The next time you hear a 'prayer' statement being made, give the dialogue some extra examination and judge for yourself.

Oh, on a final note, a personal plea to everyone praying out there: if you are going to pray, take a leaf out of Jesus' book and pray for everyone's peace and happiness ... not just for frivolous things like your 'team' winning or that your friend's cousin gets a date for prom. 

Amen.