How to Say Grace before Meals

(A special thanks to Dawn Cotino for the idea of this article. she shared with me a clipping form Real Simple magazine entitled "How to Say Grace" by Kate Bruestrup, which inspired me to write this. i am indebted both to her, and to the author of that article for some of these thoughts, which I have also included in my workbook on prayer and on my blog  on prayer.)

One way of bringing prayer into our days is to “saying grace" before meals. 

For many, mealtime prayer is just a perfunctory blessing "Good bread, good meat, good God, let's eat!"

This doesn’t mean such prayers are useless. To the contrary, it is a useful reminder of our dependence on Him.  Saying grace keeps God before us and reminds us of our priorities. 

What should we say in mealtime prayers?   Perhaps the best thing is nothing at all! Prayer isn't about what we say, but experiencing divinity in the ordinary.  Maybe that is why we call it "saying grace" instead of "saying a prayer." 

Grace is an experience that comes without strings or obligation. It is a gift lavished upon us from a generous God.  Grace at the table is a way of reminding ourselves of His generosity and care. 

The first and most important part of a proper grace should be silence.  Silence is one of God's greatest gift to us. Take a moment before meals and savor the goodness of the gift of life. Smell the food, listen to the breathing of loved ones around the table, then look into their faces (nobody said you always have to close your eyes!) Breathe slowly and completely, feeling the air go in and out. This moment--the eternal "now"--is a continual gift from a Maker, and the moment before us comes sponsored by His generosity and care. Take in the texture of the scene.   Think of the family and friends gathered, and in our hearts, give thanks for God who gave them.

The next part of a proper grace should be thanks. A simple "thank you" spoken in quietness is all that is needed.  Leave off the flowery--it is better to experience God's generosity than to wax poetical.  Our experience of God’s grace should  be like a kiss laid on a child’s forehead or a pat on the head of a dog--a simple, wordless blessing given in love and appreciation to be enjoyed in silence for all that we have received.

The final part of grace should be a simple recognition that what we receive is in Jesus' Name.  For a Christian, it is impossible to imagine grace without Jesus.  His sacrifice is the ultimate gift of grace, which makes all other gifts possible. Without Him we would not know the depth of God's love, or the pleasure of God’s company.  He is the door that connects the ordinary experience of Life with the Divine.

Don't rush through your life. Savor it. Let the saying of grace set the tone for a graceful way of living, so that every experience will be blessed and every pleasure Divine.

The Hostile Crowd

I just  reread the Abilene Paradox, by Dr. Jerry Harvey, a professor of organizational management at George Washington University. Using parables drawn from history, fantasy, the Bible and everyday life. Harvey makes a deeply profound point about human nature. His central thesis is that peer pressure does not really exist.  It is a figment of our imagination created to cover up  our fear of separation from the crowd. Most of us  will do almost anything to avoid being separated from the group. So we go along with the crowd, sometimes doing things we know to be evil, not because anyone makes us or says anything to pressure us, but just  because we fear standing out and being "different."

Harvey begins with  a story of his family's trip to Abilene which turned into a disaster. After it was all over, each person in the family admitted they did not want to go to Abilene.  From this, Harvey argues  that it is possible for a group  be stampeded into  none of them wants or desires.  From that little story,  Harvey goes on to talk about lynch mobs and the holocaust.  The holocaust would have been impossible without the complicity not only of the German people, but some of the Jews as well.  If no one stands up to an idea that is wrong or evil,  then it inevitably becomes reality.

What causes us to go along, even when we hate where we are going?  Harvey says it is loneliness.  We were created to be in relationship with others.  The fear that others would not accept us drives us to conform--even when that fear is groundless.

This has a profound and truly frightening implication for the church.  As you probably know, America is the most church-going major country in the world.  Until recently,  forty percent of Americans attend once a month. Today that figure is going down, at a rate of about one percent a year. 

The reason, I believe, has a lot more to do with conformity than theology.  Many, if not most church-going people in America do so less from theological conviction, but because they come from church-going families and live in church-going neighborhoods.  They go because they always have, and because they are part of a church-going crowd.   They are part of a church going culture.  The desire to fit in keeps them going--at least for now. 

We have built our churches on the desire to conform.  Our youth and music programs have are built largely on peer-pressure.  We have reasoned if we can get the crowd, we can get the individual.  So we use mass-media approaches to attract a crowd so will have a place to belong.

Here's the problem with this approach, as I see it.  The church crowd is really one component of a larger crowd which is louder and more encompassing than our crowd ever could be. If the church demands conformity, then the world surrounding the church demands much greater conformity.  Our goal is to move people to inner, individual spiritual experiences. The goal of the larger crowd is simply get people to conform.

That larger crowd,  which we call "the world,"  is better at manipulating people to conform than we ever were.  We do not have the television, radio, or mass media capabilities loud enough to drown out the insistent calls for Christians to become part of the conforming community.  Until now, we have always assumed in the church that the larger community was friendly to us.  But now it is becoming unfriendly to us.  Religion itself is falling into disfavor with the world.   This has been brought out by a pair of studies from Pew Research, one showing the growth of the non-religious, and another showing the worldwide increase in religious persecution.

For centuries, we could comfortably say without embarrassment that we attended church without embarrassment.  But now,  that generally welcome feeling towards church is disappearing.  Those who come to church because as a means to conform, are going to other place.  They are seeking their conformity elsewhere. 

If we rely upon conformity to be our friend,  we are in trouble.   As this anti-religious movement picks up speed,  churches held together mostly by superficial activities and social conformity will be threatened.  We  will become like the unpopular schoolgirl who threw a party and nobody came.

If Harvey's thesis is right (and I believe it is) then it is not outside pressure which threatens us but our inner fear of ostracism.  No one is saying to us we cannot be Christian, nor are the likely to.  No one is threatening to pass laws banning churches or to gather up Christians for internment.  The most annoying thing we face are to be thought peculiar. But it does not matter, being thought peculiar is enough to make many Christians head for the hills in dismay.  Our biggest fear is to stand out as different. 

Harvey suggests that fear of loneliness is a spiritual issue.  We must have faith and courage to overcome fear.   We to clearly and boldly live out our faith even when others may not understand why. We must teach our children not to fear being peculiar. 

Harvey also realizes that we cannot stand against the fear of loneliness without support.  For Christians,  he suggests heeding Jesus' words in  Matthew 28:20  "And lo,  I am with you always, even till the end of the age."

Necessity requires us to put our relationship to God before the crowd. When we do so, we must remember that Jesus also had to stand along before the crowd.  It is part of what it means to live with integrity.  Our relationship to God must be more important to us than life itself.  Along with that, Christians need to support each other in a hostile environment.  

The pressure to conform does not exist, except in our own minds. Nevertheless, we must seek help from God and form others to keep from allowing the crowd to steal us of what is mot precious in life--our faith and our integrity.