Some people say prayers.
Some people pray.
I consider myself the former, albeit not even as much as I should.
With the presence of COVID-19 killing scores of people globally, I can’t help but think of my own mortality and how fragile life really is. I mean, life is deceptively short, even without a global pandemic stamping out lives like fly swatters to flies.
My existence after this terrestrial experience is seared into my skull a little deeper than it was 10 years ago. I want to be sure I am prepared for the more favorable destination instead of the unpleasurable alternative. It is my belief, consistent prayer will not deter this.
That said, I wish I was more faithful with my prayer practice. At least as faithful as I was as a child growing up. Then, I had one memorized prayer I said every single night before climbing into my little twin bed.
It’s a hybrid of a standard one, but it was mine:
“Now lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
Guide me through the starry night
Wake me when the sun shines bright”
One day, hopefully, I will grow beyond just saying prayers, to a more advanced and genuine tongue of praying. Practice makes perfect right? One day I will be more like Al Sheets. He was a towering man in our church men’s group back in the day who I looked up to, literally and figuratively. With a commanding voice with the richness of Jean-Luc Picard he could articulate some of the most beautiful prayers off the cuff. It was flawless. It was poetry. It was real.
Hello, my name is Kevin, I say prayers.
This is my friend Al Sheets. He prays…just listen.
