posted
Joke thread got me thinking. Many people are mechanical in there prayers. Will be repetiotion. Particularly young aaronic priesthood holders. Every meeting a common plea is bless those that are not here this week to be here next week.
Well has anyone heard of this. A bishop takes an Aaronic Priesthood holder with him to prison. Aaronic Priesthood holder gives the prayer. In the prayer he prays that all those that are not here this week will be here next. Irony is that he gave that prayer in a prison.
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posted
I hear this every time a youth gives a prayer, I wonder why youth leaders are not teaching them to be more effective in prayer.....
But then I hear it from the grown ups too, including the youth leaders and even from the Bishop on occasion.
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posted
When I pray in public I get so nervous I just repeat whatever prayer cliches I can remember and say "amen." My private prayers are much more effective. I'd rather give a talk than pray in public.
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posted
If I’m not mistaken this little example of repetitious prayer is not someone’s actual experience but is taken from a fantastic book (on tape) by Jack Marshall called Going Through the Motions. The application of the ‘prayer in a prison’ was like many of his others relating to prayers, etc, recited without depth or thought. It is no longer in print, as far as I’ve been able to ascertain (if I’m wrong I’d LOVE to know how to get hold of a copy as we only have an old tape of it).
Jack Marshall has been with the Church’s CES for decades. I believe I read he teaches at University of Utah’s Institute program. Last spring he was a featured speaker at BYU-I. If you ever get a chance to hear him do not hesitate! He’s awesome..
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posted
On my mission, I realized I was very cliche and repetitive in my prayers, I worked hard to break my habits with better more creative and prayerful wording.
Eleven years later I find myself useing the exact pharases I developed on my mission to break myself of the habits of trite repetitive prayers.
In other words I managed to replace kid/teen phrases with more mature sounding phrases, and that while I really do mean them, they are still repetitive and at times rather trite simply for the repetition.
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posted
I must be really dense. I don't understand the joke at all. What were they doing there? Was the bishop a prison warden? Was the Aaronic Priesthood holder a new prisoner? Was he a youth? An adult? Why is it important what (if any) priesthood he had? Were they visiting a prisoner? Conducting church services or something? If so, wouldn't attendance by prisoners be voluntary (First Amendment and all that), so that it would still be appropriate to pray that the prisoners who chose not to attend might come next time?
Help me out here. I know that the bit about people coming next time gets to be a meaningless repetition, but I guess I'm not catching on to whatever circumstance made that funny in a prison.
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posted
Once you've figured out what's important in life, it seems likely your prayers are going to be a bit repetitive. I pretty much am thankful for the same things, and concerned about the same things, today as I was yesterday, and the day before, and ... back too many years.
I am reminded of the lyrics from The Vatican Rag by Tom Lehrer:
quote: Step into that small confessional, Find out if your sin's original, Genuflect! genuflect! genuflect!
I don't think a prayer has to be original to be sincere, though of course I recognize the danger of mouthing the same words out of habit rather than because life hasn't changed much in 24 hours.
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posted
And I also don't think we have to make an assumption that that was a rote prayer ---- people who might benefit from church may not be at the prison services, and his prayer might have meant to inspire people in that category to come.
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posted
My favorite to hear is when someone is giving a blessing for the sick and then closes with "In the name of thy son, Jesus Christ." Uh, last I checked, Jesus Christ wasn't the son of the person being blessed!
posted
LizardWizard: My take on the joke is this: * Aaronic Priesthoodl holder is synonymous with youth. * They are just visiting -- someone, meeting, it doesn't really matter. * Hoping that more will be there next week is hoping that more people will be arrested and in jail, not necessarily at a voluntary meeting. These three elements are what make it a joke.
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quote:Step into that small confessional, Find out if your sin's original, Genuflect! genuflect! genuflect!
Get in line in that processional Step into that small confessional, There the guy whose got religion'll Tell you if your sin's original. If it is, try playing it safer, Drink the wine and chew the wafer. Two, four, six, eight, Time to transubstantiate!
quote: I hear this every time a youth gives a prayer, I wonder why youth leaders are not teaching them to be more effective in prayer.....
I'm thinking it is not the youth leader that is the prime mover for change here, but the parents involved. The child has said many more prayers at Mama and Papa's knee than in the presence of any other adult (generally.) As in most righteous behaviour, the parent is the default exemplar. I know we parents here both have made a conscious effort to have Thing One and Thing Two think about their communication with God before they begin. One practice which has been somewhat helpful is to request a 10 second pause to think before launching into "Oh Heavenly Father..."
But, since we all are guilty of habitual church speak phrasing from time to time... I hope it never comes to pass that anyone makes the children so aware of the word parsers that the youth have a chance to rebel against being the voice of common prayer at all.
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posted
Just because it is said many times does not mean it is not truly meant. How many ways are there to express the desire for the return of the sick or lost sheep? True, in the story the young man was just speaking in rote - but that isn't necessarily the case every time you hear it.
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Thanks. I guess the punchline fell flat because the setup didn't unambiguously establish a situation where newly-convicted prisoners would be the only additional people who would come next week.
But to be fair, swb wasn't really telling the joke, just referring to it.
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posted
My most embarrassing trite-expression-in-a-prayer moment occurred while on my mission. I was asked to give the prayer before teaching a discussion. I bowed my head and began,"Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for this food . . . "
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posted
My most embarrassing trite-expression-in-a-prayer moment occurred while on my mission. I was asked to give the prayer before teaching a discussion. I bowed my head and began,"Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for this food . . . "
I guess if you'd caught yourself in time, you could have added "food for our hearts & spirits," & asked the Lord to "bless it that it will nourish our knowledge of Thee & feed our growing testimonies." Posts: 13014 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
I don't know if that is a true story or not but used to illustrate a point. In a you might be a mormon thing is mentioned you say bless those taht are not here this week that they will be here next and prisons, hospitals, and nursing homes are mentioned.
Another one is please bless the food we are supposed to eat and it is on donuts and punch. Point is habitual prayers can be said in wrong place.
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quote: Anyone remember George P. Lee's last Conference prayer?
Been scrounging around, can't find a transcript anywhere. So my recollections are very uncertain.
But my recollections were that it was weird beyond belief. He basically got up and started loudly apologizing to the Lord for the Church's mistreatment of the Lamanites and failure to properly take the Gospel to them. It was as weird as any of the weird testimonies you sometimes hear in fast and testimony meeting.
Now, mind you, it's not the mere fact he was chewing us out that made it weird. Holy men of God are supposed to chew us out when we neglect the commandments. It went beyond that. It was long enough ago that I'm not sure I can exactly capture what it was, but it was a kind of thing where you peeked nervously at the fellow next to you in the pew to see if he was as weirded out as you, and see he was peeking nervously back.
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I guess if you'd caught yourself in time, you could have added "food for our hearts & spirits," & asked the Lord to "bless it that it will nourish our knowledge of Thee & feed our growing testimonies." ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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