Teaching My Students to Pray

Two years ago, I made the intentional decision to pray before all of my classes. I'm in agreement with Andrew Root: the most critical and pressing spiritual formation task facing the church today is teaching ourselves how to pray. 

To be clear, this isn't about some pious "add-on" to make my class "Christian." It's not really even about practicing a "spiritual discipline," some grueling work we engage in to become better Christians. Prayer is, rather, simply an enchantment. As I describe in Hunting Magic Eels, prayer helps us overcome our pervasive attention blindness, bringing the dancing gorilla into view (if you don't know what I mean by "dancing gorilla," read the book). Prayer is vision and perception. Cleaning the dirty windows. Prayer recovers our lost sacramental ontology.

Prayer is also good medicine. A balm for the heart, a salve for our hurts. Every time I pray with my classes after the "Amen" there is soft but audible sigh. I wish you could hear it. Some cool cloth has been placed upon a fevered brow. A moment of relief and respite found in the middle of a hard and difficult day. A stream appearing in the middle of the desert.