No Prayer! Why The Supreme Court is Wrong

Prayer should not be in public/government spaces. This is because it gives the impression of endorsing a particular religious view. That can't happen. Church and state need to be separate.

So unless the state starts holding prayers for every religion represented in a given community (which some communities do), I'd prefer government officials didn't encourage religious prayer in government functions.

But then again, what if there was one prayer and it was Buddhist? Or Muslim? Would SCOTUS have come to the same conclusion? I wonder...

While adults should be able to tolerate a prayer by a different religious group, this kind of decision is something that could easily be abused by a majority religious group. It's something that when prayers of a particular group support exclusivity is a real problem in DEMOCRATIC public spaces. What if someone was fundamentalist Muslim and prayed that all the infidels should be converted? What if a charismatic Christian prayed that women should all return to their "rightful" roles as wives and mothers only? Those kinds of prayers are not conducive to openness, dialogue, and debate. They'd make me want to leave.

I don't know about you, but I was under the impression that courts were supposed to protect minorities. I'd rather not go to a public function and be told I was going to hell for speaking my mind and having a uterus - but this could happen with such a decision.

Don't want to legislate prayers? Then say people should have prayers from every religion in a community or NONE AT ALL. Simple. Instead we got a half-ass, support the majority, church-state-mix-a-lot  decision.

Bad form SCOTUS. Bad form.

Prayer in Practice

Prayer is something that all religious traditions have to some extent. The format of the prayer may be different. The deity being prayed to may be different. Still, there is something to this concept of talking to the creative force in the universe.

As I sat in my dad's office and listened to some interviews on prayer, I got to thinking about it. Then when I started fiddling with my world religion curriculum (hopefully to be published digitally very soon!) I thought more about the nature of prayer, and how it is practiced, as opposed to how it is supposed to be practiced. Two things bother me about how most people tend to pray.

It seems to me that most people pray in order to ask for things. But here's the catch - I think there is a tendency to ask for very specific things. The irony is of course, that specific things don't tend to happen. Attachment to particular processes or results will inevitably lead to disappointment; the universe simply does not go the predicted path. We are too small, too simple, with too little information to know what the right result should be. Even in cases where something incredibly horrible happens, we cannot know the long term effects. We are finite.

As far as I can tell, God, or the Divine (however you'd like to refer to the creative force in the universe) is far from finite. And I, small as I am, am at least smart enough to concede I have no concept of what infinite really means.

So when I pray, how can I ask for a specific result? That specific thing may in fact be the worst possible situation. I am incapable of knowing! Instead, I should pray for resolution to a situation that will make life more wonderful, according to my needs and those for whom I pray. Open-ended is the rule of the day when it comes to prayer.

I also noticed that most people interviewed in the video did not mention once that they thanked God for the good things in their lives. This seems really strange to me. It seems strange because even when our lives are full of difficulties, there are many things for which to be thankful.

Sometimes (in fact, I would say more often than not) my prayers at night are solely things I'm thankful for. I will go through one thing after another, no matter how small, and thank God for each and every thing. Sometimes if I'm having a really difficult day, I will have to start with those basic things - like having a soft pillow, or my sweet cat, or having eaten a hot meal. Sometimes I'm able to jump to other higher level things right from the beginning of my prayer, like having a loving husband, or a loving family, or good friends. No matter if I start with basic needs being met or relationships or even something more, any time I pray like this, I notice my mood changes and I feel so much better about my life.

It makes me think that all prayers should thank God, at least a little bit, because there is always something to be thankful for, no matter how small. There is so much beauty in the world, so much wonder. Only a person with a blinded spirit could not see the glory of creation and the blessings bestowed on even the lowliest.

Prayer is a good thing. It is something that is part of the human religious experience, and crosses our traditions. Yet when we pray, we should keep in mind that we cannot know the specific answers to our prayers - only that the Divine will certainly provide for us. Likewise, we are already so blessed, we cannot forget to be thankful for each and every blessing - no matter how small. Prayer is so much more than a request. It must be a conversation, and conversations must consist of more than questions.