From Zev Chafetz, The Right Way to Pray? NY Times, Sept. 16, 2009:
“… when you come right down to it, there are only four basic prayers. Gimme! Thanks! Oops! and Wow!”
“That’s it?”
“Yep. Wow! are prayers of praise and wonder at the creation. Oops! is asking for forgiveness. Gimme! is a request or a petition. Thanks! is expressing gratitude. That’s the entire Judeo-Christian doxology. That’s what we teach our kids in religious school.”
“What about adults who want to learn to pray?”
“I tell them to start with prayers of Thanks! That’s what Christians call ‘grace.’ Everybody has something to be grateful for.”
“What if the person doesn’t believe in God?”
“Then I tell him to thank who or what seems appropriate,” Gellman said. “Hey, you’ve got to start somewhere. If people say prayer is a crutch, I don’t disagree. Sometimes you need a crutch. But I don’t believe in a God who is a magician and miraculously answers individual prayer. That’s absurd.”
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I did love the article and made think about how we miss the direction of prayer. I fleshed it out my response.
Posted by: Ernesto | September 25, 2009 at 05:01 PM
True, although I've added a couple in my class: "Why?" and "Stop!" or "Listen" and "Yo!"
Wow can also be translated as "Awesome."
Of course in my vocabulary, "Gimme" is "Please" and "Oops" is "Sorry."
Posted by: padremambo | November 09, 2009 at 08:01 AM