As you are reading this, I can hear three different answers to my question. Some people are thinking yes, why not? Others are thinking rather not, I do not want to get involved in praying for people. And a third group is saying: why is the question relevant?
Let me answer the last question first: why is the question relevant?
There have been two recent incidents in the UK where people prayed for others and got into serious enough trouble to potentially lose their jobs.
In one incident, a five-year-old child apparently talked to another child about heaven and God. The child probably simply repeated what she had heard at home, but she repeated the information to another child that received a different view of religion at home. The other child got upset about hearing a different version, and the teacher told off the five-year-old for discussing God at school.
Of course the girl was upset enough to tell her mother, a receptionist at school, about the incident. The mother then emailed a group of Christian friends and asked for their prayers on this incident. A few days later the receptionist was told that she was being investigated for professional misconduct because of the private email to friends.
We all know that there are two sides to every incident, and that the press like to blow up the more controversial side. The intention here is not to provide a factual record of the incident, but simply to highlight the incident as a whole.
Another incident that happened at more or less the same time related to a nurse that offered to say a prayer for an elderly patient. The patient declined the prayer and the nurse did not insist. The patient then complained to the care providers and now the nurse is being investigated.
The issues that I want to highlight are the different understanding about what prayer is, and the lack of tolerance on all sides.
Let us first look at the different understanding. Is prayer a series of words that are uttered in a particular tone of voice while standing on your knees with your hands pressed together? In my view, no. As far as I am concerned, prayer is every thought that ever enters our heads, every word that ever comes from our mouths and every action that we ever take.
If you say that swearing at a driver that cuts into your lane is not prayer, I am afraid it is - maybe not a very nice one, but it is. And those thoughts you preferred not to express last time you got really angry were also a form of prayer.
The church taught us that prayer must have a particular format and that there is a time and a place for formal prayers. The church also told us to use particular language when we pray (language that I often think even confuses God because of its obsequies, superfluous repetitive wording). As with everything else religious, the church dictated and people followed without thinking.
As a result prayer has for many people become something that is placed in a little box, only to be opened in specific company and at specific times.
When I talk about meditation, people who believe in prayer often turn away, because they would not want to associate with anything to do with meditation. In my view and experience, meditation is simply an intensified form of prayer which does not replace the prayer that we are involved in 24 hours per day.
Assuming that prayer is actually every thought and word and action, both the receptionist and nurse could have offered their prayers and asked for prayers form others simply by thinking, and by not even opening their mouths. The effect would have been immediate and powerful, like any other action that is based on pure Love.
Religion and religious education have taught people to think and believe in one dimension, and to not even try to understand anything that happens under the surface. The people that have to investigate these incidents probably believe that their actions, whether it is disciplinary action or dismissing their colleagues, is the only action that is taking place. They are probably oblivious of the effect of additional prayers that have been uttered as a result of their actions.
The other issue is the intolerance of all parties in these two cases. Those that believe in formal prayer believe that they are right, and those that object to formal prayer believe that they are right.
What if both sides are right? What if these incidents happen so that they can teach all of us that it is not for us to judge?
For me the lesson is that we often are completely unaware of our actions and the consequences of our actions. We look at what we can see and hear externally, and we completely miss the point, namely that the other 99% of what happens in and around us is not visible to the naked eye or audible to the physical ear. We forget that everything, including this article, is a form of prayer. If we can accept that prayer is everything at all times, we will probably be a lot more aware of what we think, say and do, and send better energy into the world rather than wait for the world to treat us better. If we are more aware of our own actions and the consequences of our actions at all times, not only on Sundays while in church, we will ask ourselves what on earth we achieve by scolding a five-year-old for simply repeating what is told to her, or for reporting someone to some figure of authority for thinking kind thoughts about us (because that is what a healing prayer is) or for asking friends for a prayer of assistance (or kind thoughts).
Actions such as those that were taken in these two cases only reflect the lack of awareness of spirituality in this world, and the level of control that people assume to have over the thoughts of others, when in fact they have no control at all - not even over their own thoughts, because they do not have the awareness that their thoughts and actions are their own.