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12 February 2014

What is prayer for? Why Pray?

My last class with the third year students for this semester for Philosophy of Religion became very engaging when the final questions and clarifications boiled down to 'prayer'.  After reminding them all about who and what God and all His attributes mean, I merely stated that prayer would be a sincere expression of who and what I am, in all honesty before God, for a deeper understanding of oneself and a better concern for others,... all of this with God as my point of reference.  To give an analogy, it came out of my mouth... standing naked before God, without any feelings of guilt or shame.

Then the question was, if prayer is merely an expression of my self, wherein I do not - and cannot - change the 'will of God', then what is the difference between me expressing my self to God and me expressing to another human being?  Only in the subsequent thinking and reflection it dawned on me that the quality of my expression or the depth of it, depends not merely on with whom I am interacting or conversing with, but also as to what is my relation to that being.  For example, I asked a Brother: Will there be a difference in my expression of self to a railway track, to a tree, to a stranger, to a friend, to a parent and to God?   Besides the fact that the living person is capable of responding, is there anything else that 'qualifies' my expression, makes my level of sharing relevant to me?  Then it dawned on us that it would be the relationship quotient between me and the other.  If God is anything or as cheap as a railway track then, what would be my 'prayer'??? On the other hand, the quality of my expression, sharing with my parent or friend, what level would that be?   If God is someone much more than that for me then what level of sharing would be going on between both of us?

I concluded with a quote from Harold Kushner's book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People
In prayer you discover people around you
God beside you
and strength within you...

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