ON PRAYER:

I've never been a good pray-er. While I prayed before every meal growing up, it was the same rote thing: DearHeavenlyFatherwethankyouforthisfoodwethankyouforthisdaywethankyoufor-
sendingyourSontodieonthecrossinYournameweprayAmen.

This was done because all three of us kids had to pray before we could eat, so it was in our stomachs' best interest for all of us to fly through these prayers.

When I got to college, my prayers became a little more pragmatic:

"Lord, if you help me find my remote before 'Raw' starts, I promise I will be a better person."

Between undergrad and grad school, I re-read Olive Ann Burns's "Cold Sassy Tree," part of which talked about prayer being for spiritual things and not so much for physical things. Specifically, the book talked about the verse "Ask, and it shall be given to you. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and the door shall be opened to you." I'm paraphrasing the book and the Bible here because I don't have the energy to look either up.

Well, that just makes sense. I mean, doesn't it seem obvious that God would be more concerned with spiritual needs than physical (or financial) ones?

Fast forward to Thanksgiving dinner, my second year in grad school. Most of my classmates were in attendance at a friend's house. Somehow, I ended up being asked to give the blessing. Knowing full well that the aforementioned "before every meal" prayer wouldn't hold up, I gave a blessing that, surprisingly, wasn't terrible. And while it didn't exactly open the floodgates for me, it sprung a leak in my "Don't talk about faith" wall.

Fast forward (again) to time spent with improv friends. While we were at dinner one night last September, I bowed my head to say a silent prayer. They asked me to pray out loud, and, somehow, those prayers have become an important part of our meals together.

Fast forward (last time) to a wedding reception this weekend. As the meal was set before me, I prayed a silent prayer, not just thanking God for the meal or the day, but also asking for the spiritual strength not just to "not punch" the idiot at our table, but also for the spiritual strength to love him as another of God's children. The rest of the night went fine.