Why do people pray?
From Stories About God by Mary Ann Moore

Goal:
To consider some ideas about the nature of prayer.

Preparation:
Read Background for Being With God in Prayer.

Activities:
Introduce the story:
In our Unitarian Universalist church people have many different ideas about God. For some people God is what’s really real, for some God is what’s most important, and for some God is what’s most mysterious. But there are also some UUs who have ideas about what’s most real and most important and most mysterious but they don’t call those things God. They use other words, like Universe, Life, or Love. In our church we each decide for ourselves which words to use and what we believe.
The stories I’m going to read were written to help kids decide for themselves what they thing about God. Here’s one of them.

Read: “Being With God in Prayer.”

Discuss:
What do you do when you have a problem?
Have you ever shared a problem with God? Did you ever get help for a problem in a dream?
What are the 3 things the story suggests we remember about prayer?

Make up a body prayer:
In the story the girl mentioned that she had seen people use their bodies in different ways when they prayed. Have you ever seen this? Let’s try some of the ways we’ve seen other people use their bodies when they pray.

• Bowing the head, with or without eyes closed.
• Hands together with palms touching and fingertips up, placed near the heart.
• Same as #2 but touching first the forehead, then the lips, and then the heart.
• Crossing hands across the chest.
• Making the sign of the cross. Head to chest to left side to right side.
• Arms held out straight and lifted straight overhead, at a 45 degree angle and out to the sides.
• Arms overhead like the sun.
• Kneeling with hands as in #2.
• Kneeling with heads touching the ground.
• Twirling around.
• Rhythmically stamping with the feet.
• Clapping hands.
• Making a circle together by joining hands.
• Hands reaching forward toward the center of the circle.
• Rocking back and forth.

Discuss what it feels like to do these different body motions. Try making up your own body movements to express a prayer. Talk about what you are “saying” with your body.