Get Down on Your Knees and Pray

Even if you don't know what the hell the prayer means. Such as: Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Before taking this common nighttime prayer into consideration, let's look at my parents' idea about what a religious family should look like. First, we went to church on Christmas Eve and Easter. This was called "Holiday Protestants" and was the norm until my father became a Deacon of the First Presbyterian Church in our neighborhood. I was about thirteen at the time and we went to church every Sunday morning for a couple of years until my mother got tired of getting up early to get dressed and put on make-up. During those couple of years, however, I joined the youth group called Agape and went to confirmation classes where I memorized the Apostle's Creed and the Lord's Prayer and some other stuff I quickly forgot. I was confirmed into the faith and had no idea what any of it really meant. Nor did I care much until I turned sixteen and discovered that the boy I wanted to date sang in the church choir. I quickly returned to church on Sundays and joined the choir. The boy could really sing. I was mostly deaf and could not hear myself so had no ear for music and made up for it by singing LOUDLY although I enjoyed the rehearsals and singing Handel's Messiah on Christmas Eve. I especially enjoyed having a new boyfriend who really didn't care whether I could sing or not as long as I let him kiss me. That pretty much sums up my religious training. We never said "Grace" at the dinner table, talked about Jesus, God, or the church except when donations were solicited for our pastor's trip to Israel which irked my mother who said she wanted to collect donations for our next trip to Florida. I don't recall my mother exhibiting much religious fervor unless I brought home a boyfriend who was Catholic or Jewish and then I learned that dating outside my "faith" was a very, very bad idea because those people were different. My best girlfriend in high school was Catholic and I thought the cathedral was beautiful and the gold cross she wore around her neck was pretty. Other than that, I knew someone called Pope made up the rules and that she had five real sisters but called some women who dressed in odd penguin-like dresses "sister" as well. She also called her pastor "father." It all seemed strange, but I loved Kathy and our religious differences made no impact whatsoever on our friendship. After all, kids focus on the important things: like, what can make us laugh the hardest, which color of nail polish is best, how could we snag a boyfriend, and where we could steal a cigarette. When I grew old enough to drive myself around, I went to Mass with Kathy a few times and thought the experience was mystifying and exotic. The mass conducted in Latin, the ritual, the chanting, and all the kneeling and crossing one's forehead and shoulders felt so dramatic to my adolescent self, so much so, that I began crossing myself whenever I felt it might be appropriate, believing it made me more holy. I am certain my mother would have smacked me across the head had she seen me demonstrating such sacrilege. However, most of what I learned about Christianity, the bible, and religion in general did not come from my church experience or my family but through encounters with people and friends from other faiths, reading, and travel. Perhaps it also came from my curiosity about it all and my constant search for answers. Jesus is a fascinating and illusive character, both historically and religiously and I always wanted to discover more about his life and teachings. I found it perplexing and somewhat disturbing that the man and his teachings were interpreted by a myriad of denominations and scholars in so many ways that the core of what He wanted to convey became lost in dogma and at times, just plain nonsense. I continue to read and study about Jesus and theologically I still find His life, times, and teachings, thought provoking and important but I do not find the essence nor the guidance I seek inside specific dogmas even though I love holy places and will pray and meditate wherever and whenever they are available. As a result, I have found myself in temples - Jewish, Hindu, and Buddhist. I have prayed and worshiped in cathedrals all over the world, at Quaker meetings, and in non-denominational churches. Like many people who have visited Istanbul, I found my time in the Sophia Haj a powerful spiritual experience even though, at the time, I knew little to nothing about Islam. St. Paul's Cathedral in London and Notre Dame in Paris left me speechless but spiritually, I did not feel any different in those bastions of faith than I did in the small Old Warsaw Church (c. 1820) located in the suburbs of metro Atlanta. I have never felt that my connection to a higher being any less distinct in any of specific place of worship; each one humbles me and connects me to those feelings that remind me we are all human. I am sure that like me, those who worship, regardless of where and in what manner, seek to connect to something higher than themselves.

Regardless, the bedtime prayer I learned as a child remains troublesome. Did my parents listen to what was asked by reciting it? "If I should die"? I was seven! My brother was no more than four! Who thinks of dying at that age? What I got from the prayer while I recited it in my mousy little voice is that if I went to sleep, I might die so I did my best to stay awake after my parents turned off the lights by singing to myself, picking my nose, making knots in my hair, or building tents with my covers. I had no idea what a soul was, who the Lord was, or why I would want Him to take my soul and no one bothered to explain it to me. In those days, when a child asked a question, they were often told to "Just do as I say." Or: "Go to hell the sleep," which was all the more frightening because hell provided an exact place where I might end up if I did close my eyes and drift off. Perhaps it was a reminder that if I didn't ask that guy, the Lord, to take my soul, my seven years of trespasses would doom me to hell. I clearly understood what those trespasses were. In a fit of revengeful rage, I bit myself and blamed it on my brother so that he got a spanking (still asking forgiveness for that one). I had evil thoughts about other people: my Grandma looked like a witch in those ugly black laced-up shoes, my best friend didn't have a brand-new blue bike and I made sure she envied mine by telling her so, and I made fun of the kid who lived down the street. Poor Dwight Cole had not yet grown into his Dumbo ears. Surely, I was doomed to hell. No wonder I have chosen to remain a spiritual free spirit and avoid commitment to any one faith. I learned to hedge my bets a long time ago.