While eating dinner at some point last week, my son asked why we prayed over the food. I hadn't given it much though and so didn't know what to say. I was surprised when Chad had an immediate answer, "We pray because we believe someone is listening." That was a good answer to a good question. If I had been forced to answer, I would have said something about tradition and expressing thanks in a more general way.
Do I believe that someone is listening?
Last night while struggling for sleep, I slipped into a habitual prayer. In my mind I said, "Dear Heavenly Father, please help me sleep... Dear God... Dear... Why am I praying?" I laid there and wondered about who was listening to me. In the end, I just returned to and repeated my original prayer and fell asleep. Eventually.
So, why do I pray? I know that many people believe that prayer is a lifeline to their deity, also, it has been proven to give hope and comfort to those who are in difficult situations. I pray out of habit. When I was an active member of the LDS church, I prayed quite often. I prayed in the morning, over each meal, in the evenings with my family and then again at night before I went to bed. The position of choice for prayer was on your knees, arms folded across your chest with head bowed. It felt good to supplicate yourself to someone who could make everything better, someone who cared how I felt and was always there when I needed help or just someone to talk to. Now that my beliefs have changed I am left with some enduring habits that have no outlet, one of which is prayer. I think that I still pray because, basically, I do believe that someone is listening. My thoughts on who that person/deity is have changed significantly. So much so that I'm not even positive that prayer does anything at all. But in the end, I do think that there is something out there greater than me, and it wouldn't hurt to turn my thoughts to that being when in need of some comfort.
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