Prayer and Its Many Forms
"Chaplain, will you pray for me?"
"What about praying together?"
"I don't know how."
I wonder how many of us are actually in this category of unknowing. Not knowing how. Or maybe not feeling that we are worthy of prayer. I know the incarcerated young people I work with often think of themselves as unworthy and unknowing. Before I deepened my spiritual life, I think I most often thought of prayer as that thing that was done in stilted language at the Thanksgiving Dinner table asking to bless the meal. It went something like this:
Gracious God, thou art good. Thank you for providing this food this day. I as thou to bless it. We are grateful that thou hast brought us together on this day. Bless us and may blessing reign down from heaven. Amen.
I can't even communicate the durat...