Prayer in Public or Private? Church services and prayer rugs

It's been a while since I've last posted.  Tough times have come my way and I'm finding it a challenge to stay motivated with all the various aspects of life that keep plugging forward.  Time has stopped a bit for me, this week slowly dragging by, but responsibilities beckon me into the river of work that continues to carry me downstream, whether I'm paddling or not. 

These difficult times have helped to fuel this inner discourse I am having on religion and faith.  For example, have you ever noticed that when something difficult happens - an illness, a tragedy - people comment "I'll pray for you."  Maybe this is a Midwest thing, but I've wondered about this lately, especially since the majority of people saying this are often not the church-going type, or the religious type at all.  Is this something that our Christian-based society (in the US here) has taught us to say to comfort one another?  I wonder - do those people really go home and pray?

An image of a woman in personal prayer.
From this link.

 I grew up saying a prayer every night before I went to bed.  "Now I lay me down to sleep,  I pray the Lord my soul to keep.  If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.  God bless Mom, Dad, my Sister and Brother, and God bless everyone in the whole wide world.  Amen."  This was the prayer that we said before our parents kissed our foreheads and turned out the lights.  It was routine, automatic, and I said it without really thinking about what it meant.  I was a little kid so I'll cut myself a break here. 

When I grew older, the only time I prayed was when I went to church and the pastor asked for a moment of silent prayer.  Then he always cut me off when I was half way through my own prayer with his pre-written prayer that he read to the entire congregation.  I always felt like I was racing to make it through those moments of silence without getting cut-off right in the middle of an important request to God.

Prayer is different for everyone, so I can't comment on how the majority of Christians or Muslims view prayer.  For some I can say it is probably remarkably similar, for others, very different.

I'll start with the similarities.  Both religions encourage group prayer - for Christians that typically takes place at Sunday services, and for Muslims, on Friday. 

One day H. and I were looking through images in a book about Islam.  We came across an image of hundreds of women, all dressed in white or light-colored hijabs and long, loose dresses that covered the neck, arms and legs, standing in prayer lines in a mosque. 

This is almost exactly the image we were looking at.  I think it might be from Indonesia.
Photo from this article at The Sun.

"Is this image scary for you?"  He asked me. 

I was a bit taken back "No.  Why would it scare me?"  I replied.   What I saw was group prayer.  Pretty common here in the US.  If you go into any church service - Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist and so on - you'll see a similar image (if you remove the gender and clothing filter).  You'll see people standing in orderly lines in their pews, reciting the same words as a chorus, and standing and sitting around the same time, on cue. 

A Christian church service, it seems like a very energetic one by the looks of it.
Image from this link.

The main difference between these two situations is that the women in the image were wearing traditional-conservative clothing and covering their heads.  They all looked similar, as they were all wearing about the same color.  Yet, I'm sure that underneath those white coverings their clothes were just as colorful as the bright dresses and skirts worn by women here on Easter Sunday. 

Group prayer may be scary for some.  It may spark images of fundamentalist messages spread like wildfire through the masses.  It may produce images of coins tinkling in an offering basket - gifts for the Church.  There was a time for me when group prayer did indeed strike me a bit off-balance.  The motions, the rituals, reveal who belongs and who doesn't (or so I thought).  Then once it becomes routine, there is no thinking involved and the muscle memory takes over, which in my mind meant that the brain was not as engaged as well and acting more as a sponge than a filter.  I had (and still do have) both unease and respect for communal religious ritual -it's powerful and influencing, therefore one must have their heart open, but the mind engaged. 

While communal prayer and religious practice may have many similarities between the two religions, the private aspects of prayer are quite different.  For practicing Muslims, prayer is required five times daily, at dawn, midday, afternoon, evening and night.  For Christians, whenever the inspiration strikes, or whenever one dedicates the time.  Muslims must prepare themselves for prayer, they wash their feet, arms, ears and face - otherwise known as performing wudu.  Muslims also must pray facing Mecca and on a clean prayer rug, or rug of some type.  Prayer is performed in a sequences of movements, which is repeated a certain number of times depending on the time of day.  It is a process not only spiritual, but physical as well.  For Christians, well I guess it would depend on what type of Christianity one follows, for Catholics there may be more ritual involved, but for Protestants private prayer is very informal - a chat with God, so to speak. 

A Muslim woman praying by herself.
Image from this article at Muslim Voices.

 I think the ritual associated with Muslim prayer is something that may seem unfamiliar to an outsider.  It is different from what we are used to and involves a process, cleaning, laying the rug towards Mecca and then performing the prayers.  It is open to observers - through these actions it easy to tell if one is praying.  It is not the same as sitting with eyes quietly closed and praying - one can do this without being noticed, without any religious act being observed.  I don't think anyone can say that one way is better or worse than the other, just that they are different. 

For me, I'm drawn to the private aspects of religion.  The moments that happen internally, and without the words of anyone else raining down on my ears.  Moments of private prayer.  Yet, I'm not much involved in the practice.  Although, I wish I were more so. 

I would love to hear others chime in on these topics!  I know religion can be a bit of a scary topic, and that many prefer to keep to themselves about it, but I think it would be great to hear more moderate voices on this topic - I know you are out there!

This post is the third in a series of posts on religion and culture in a cross-cultural relationship, you can read the introduction here, and the second post here.