Prayer

I don't get the current concept of prayer that I perceive from christian subculture. It seems to be the belief that if many people appeal to the omnipotent, God will somehow change God's mind in whatever matter is presented. This observation comes from years of research, and is ignited by my past year teaching at a christian school in the Dominican Republic. It seems that both Dominican and North American teachers have this idea that we should all pray for each other's obscure relatives, friends of friends, and anyone else that has recently contracted cancer, diabetes, or the seasonal head cold. Why else would people ask complete strangers to pray for someone they have never met?

I like community, and I want us to be connected to each other in a very "bodily" way (I say this to mean the way God became a body and did body stuff among us). Let us live together, love together, work together, and worship together. Let us pray together, but not with the mindset that we'll change God's mind. It seems a bit absurd to think that we can somehow impact the creator with our chants or pleas, no matter how "in the will of God" our attitude seems to be at the time. Let us search for God, and let us find that God has been looking for us. Let us pray that we can form relationships and communities that go deep, that we will know how to pray for our friends without having to announce "it's time to take prayer requests." Let us not only think of our own stuff, but be interested in others and what they are doing. (Philippians 2:4)