I really like this question. I started to question my prayers when I started to realize cartoons weren't real. When I gave up being a Jehovah Witness I found out I wanted to be spiritual but not religious. I was agnostic for awhile because I craved for something I don't think I ever felt until recently. I meditate now but I don't ask for Jehovah Jesus or a creator to help me or answer questions. I just feel myself as a part of the universe and try to find inner peace and try to do right to others. I think prayer can be a way to reflect on really anything. Like a loved ones heirloom or the smell of someones perfume that lingers on a blanket. You just close your eyes, remember, question and answer yourself. Those memories would be good I would think. If we were made in God's image we can focus on so many different aspects, and I think we can focus on anything we want. We can temper the best us, seek solitude in an opinion or favorite text and isolate it. Making it a personal mantra, or find resolve and examples from a powerful illustration or a pragmatic person, or even temper feelings of love, or that god will smite those that have done us wrong. Prayer for me is being thankful, reflection, acceptance and nurturing your best qualities while recognizing your limitations. We spend so much time going on auto pilot, we forget to take care of ourselves because we're so busy taking care of others. The main problem with prayer is the way we belittle ourselves. "I'm SUCH a sinful person, I'm not good enough, I'll never be a pioneer," and my favorite, "I'll never survive to paradise, (for whatever reason.)" The huge focus on fear and death ruins the benefits of prayer. We do need rules, and it's important to know what's wrong and right, but it shouldn't be pummeled in to our face to make us paranoid that we aren't doing enough, anxious enough to make us feel as if we are spiritually weak, or depressed to the point of possibly just giving up or wanting to end it all. Do I think praying is necessary? No, I think our actions intentions and sub conscious thoughts are prayers in themselves. That's what we want to happen. I think the way of praying needs to change. Kind of like when you pray to your heart a loved one comes home safe from a night of a terrible storm, but I think my ADD is taking over and I'm rambling. haha.
