I’ve heard that word so much over my short lifetime that it had become a little frightening, the jargon of an exclusive cult, meaningless not only to outsiders, but to those who fake their way into the club. When I would be in a conversation with someone, and they’d slip in the ‘P’ word (“…and I’m going to talk to my supervisor, pray for me!”) my body would automatically stiffen, and I’d mumble in agreement of this ‘favour’, wondering for how long this contractual obligation was expected to last. Or if I spoke to someone about something that was irritating me, or some issue I was having – often not a big deal, like handing in belated uni essays, and brought up in the first place by the other person when they’d asked, ‘How are you going with such and such?’) – and they would conclude my articulation with a thoughtful, “Hm. Let’s pray about this.” It would be like a total shift in our conversation, I would blink for a few seconds, recollecting my thoughts, realise the connection between their words and mine, and say, “Oh, sure, sure, that would be great”, wondering if everything I mentioned always had to end in prayer.

It was not as if I didn’t pray. The term ‘prayer’ though was an act of tradition, in my mind relegated to church books stacked in pews, recited on cue en masse during service. It was the benediction after an already lengthy service, the adjectives upon adjectives of Jesus’ magnitude and glory, the almost trancelike state where time was an immaterial limit. It was an exact art, and if you couldn’t do it right you shouldn’t do it at all in public. If someone voluntarily used the term ‘prayer’ outside the church building, they likely had high standards of the act because they had transcended levels 1 and 2 of Christianity 101, whereas I was still floundering in the bridging course.

It has taken me a while to restrain myself from flinching when I hear the word, to override my initial hesitations and rewrite its denotation as simply talking with God. I make it a point to keep my initial opening in prayers not as elaborate as Paul might have said it, our Heavenly God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, but just simply ‘Dear God’. It reminds me that just as Jesus used the familial term of ‘Abba’ to refer to the Almighty creator, prayer need not be a scary and intimidating concept only for the articulate and voluble but the simple act which we commit everyday with friends and family – talking.