Prayer

 As a young girl, I was quite a Pharisee. I wanted very much to be religious but even more I wanted to be seen as religious.

When I was about 10, our pastor at Holy Trinity Church in Westfield, NJ, where I lived from age 9 till marriage, gave everyone a challenge: spend more time praying in church. Wanting to be spiritual and very attuned to challenges from teachers (I was a pathological grade hound), I made a promise. I’m sure I wanted to please my parents, and was disappointed that they never mentioned it.

So, on Sundays, before Mass started, I stayed kneeling longer than my parents and siblings did. Unfortunately, I didn’t know how to pray for more than about two minutes, so I just knelt in mind-silence, wondering if anyone knew I was faking it.

This morning I went to the Bethesda Ward since I’m visiting my older brother, Steve, and his wife, Maria. I rolled into the parking lot at 10:07 a.m. for the 10:10 sacrament meeting. The lot was empty except for a row of about seven cars in the corner. The building had  a sign: Washington DC North Mission office down the stairs and in the rear, so I assume these are extra ‘mission cars’ up for sale.

I walked around the building to verify what I already knew: all the doors were locked and the chapel empty. Probably it is stake conference here, the semi-annual meeting of all the congregations in the stake (like a diocese). I pondered whom I would communicate with to suggest a change on the Church global website. I’m sure it would cause huge technical challenges to list stake conference dates for the 3,500 units worldwide. I know in our Cambridge Stake the dates change from time to time.

We’ve had this experience before. I guess it indicates how often we travel. A memorable time was in June of 2001. All eight of us flew to Paris on our way to Florence, Cinque Terre, London, and the Orkney Islands. We had found the address of the Paris church and found our way to the door. But it was locked. It was a commercial building, not a free-standing church building, and we wondered if we had the correct address. A large window in front with a curtain had a Book of Mormon on the windowsill, so we were confident of our location. But no meeting.

We did attend church in French once. We all were visiting Quebec City, one of my favorite places in North America, and found the small branch, also in a commercial building. The American missionaries were pleased to see us and became impromptu interpreters.

So, this morning, as I sit in an impromptu private devotional on a red metal bench with no cushion, I am creating a Primary lesson for my grandkids in the Bronx. They are about the age I was when I made a promise to pray more and then felt guilty for never fulfilling it. I want them to know that like a good conversation, sincere prayer takes effort and focus. A friend of mine once observed that God isn’t a ‘cosmic bellhop.’

In preparation for our lesson, I read an article on the Church website I happened to see after logging onto the chapel’s Liahona network. (Every church building I know of uses the same network name and passcode.) "God Knows and Loves You" It became the basis of my lesson. I'm also going to play a clip of Louis Armstrong singing "What a Wonderful World," and a karaoke "I Am a Child of God."

I'm still learning about prayer myself. I often 'shoot beyond the mark.' I'm not all that good at conversation, so I have that to overcome. But  I'll keep trying.