Proper prayer posture (from '12)

I was in the fetal position in bed praying that God doesn’t discount the prayers of guys too lazy to get down on their knees to worship.

I mostly pray in bed with my fingers crossed like they taught in Sunday school. But unlike Sunday school, I’m naked and usually cuddled up against my wife, not at all what they teach in Sunday school, at least in the boring ones I attended.

My most traditional Christian prayer posture is at the bedside of my daughters. I try and pray with them every night when I’m not out in the bar getting all gooned up with my buddies.

I cherish those moments -- and I mean the ones with my daughters (and, yeah, the ones with the guys, too).

With the daughters, I think if God grades prayers he’d give mine an A.

Knees on the floor, head bowed, hands folded, prayers concise -- I’m talking as much to the daughters as I am the Lord. I ask God to help the sick, the lonely and the sad. Really, I don’t expect God is going to do any of that stuff so I want the girls to know it would be nice if they pitched in and sort of did what we all wish He would.

I never really thought much about prayer posture until about five years ago when I remember seeing a pictorial study of President George W. Bush absorbed in prayer. Watching him in prayer was like watching a magician try to bend spoons with his mind.

He looked deadly sincere, like if he furrowed his brow deep enough God was going to stop watching Tim Tebow play football and say, “Holy cow! George Bush has something really important to say!”

The Bush presidency really challenged my faith. I always wondered what he was praying for.

I can’t imagine he prayed he’d preside over a failed presidency and global condemnation over his unholy Iraq war and a wrecked economy.

The only prayer of his I can imagine God possibly answered in the affirmative was maybe, “Dear Lord, please let one of my daughters grow up to be a Today Show correspondent.”

At least that’s working out.

The Muslims are fierce prayers. Five times a day they tilt toward Mecca and assume postures fitness crazed Americans do only in yoga class when they want to achieve a tight fanny.

Hearing children pray is a delight. My all-time favorite was when our youngest was 4. It was the evening before Easter and I said a very moving prayer about about the resurrection. 

After my amen, the little one chimed in, “And God bless the Easter Bunny and God bless yourself,” a perfect mingling of the sacred and the secular.

I’ve said a lot of prayers with my fingers gripping a steering wheel, and I used to say a lot of prayers in lecture halls holding, not a Bible, but a No. 2 pencil. I’m not proud of it, but I’ve even said prayers while bent over 6-foot par putts.

God’s been about 50-50 on granting the latter.

To try and gain some insight on proper prayer posture, I engaged the source men and women of faith reach for whenever they seek spiritual guidance.

Yep, I Googled it.

The Biblical Research Institute cites chapters and verses where the Bible tells how holy folks prayed.

It cites examples of men and women communing with God while kneeling, standing, sitting, lying down on a bed (yes!), or prostrate on the ground with their noses in the dirt.

It says there is not one recommended prayer posture: “Any attempt to select one as superior and indispensable over the others lacks biblical support.”

I guess that means Tebowing is okay, too.

Faith in this world of woe is often elusive. I spoke with two people this week who are questioning their faith.

I encouraged them to struggle through their doubt and believe.

I’m perfectly happy deadening the logical part of my brain in favor of thinking there is a God who loves us and wants us to love one another.

All we can do is pray our prayers have even a prayer of being heard.

Manifesto Destinies and Norway tragedy

Well, I suppose all the patriots can feel a little bit better about themselves now that the tree of liberty has once again been refreshed by the blood of tyrants, this time about 76 Norwegians, most of them children.

It’s always tricky writing about far-right Christian crusaders who go on bloody kill sprees based on what far-right Christian crusaders urge because far-right Christian crusaders will howl wrongful persecution.

And they, as we’ve seen once again, have the intent, the rhetoric and the lethal hardware to make things really, really unpleasant for those who don’t share their views.

Acting on the inspiration of websites like the soon-to-be-famous jihadwatch.org, accused killer Anders Behring Breivik told police the attack was “gruesome,” but “necessary.”

It sounds like the same explanation we heard 17 years ago from Tim McVeigh, the right wing Oklahoma City bomber who was Tea Party before Tea Party was cool.

His 1,500-page manifesto makes it clear Breivik hates immigrants, Muslims, inter-racial mingling and political correctness. I’ve yet to read mention of it, but it’s likely he hates those little energy efficient light bulbs, too.

Breivik took it upon himself to instigate a cultural revolution he hopes will purge Europe of all Muslims and punish live-and-let-live social appeasers (like me) who contribute to “cultural suicide.”

He makes it clear he’d be more comfortable if he could return the world to what it was like in the 50s.

The 1750s.

His kind would have your kind would stay over there where you belonged and my kind stay over here where I belonged.

If anyone was craving some Chinese take-out we’d have to order it from Beijing.

It’s all there in his manifesto.

Far be it for me to complain about anyone who writes long, rambling passages that go unread by all but handfuls of the cubically incarcerated, but why is it the only people famous for writing manifestos always seem consumed with killing?

They write about their hatreds, their resentments and how the bloodshed they’re about to inflict will rejuvenate the world to their righteous views.

Breivik sees it as a divine calling.

All that’s missing is confirmation he was acting on God’s orders.

Although it’s never a mitigating factor in any of the eventual homicide trials, God tells a lot of far right Christian crusaders there are plenty of people who need killing.

It’d be nice if all the people God told to hug someone that needed it made the news once in a while.

Maybe that should be a cornerstone of my manifesto. It would be full of stuff that would change the world.

For instance: The only ones who’d be permitted by law to work more than seven months a year would be the ones running all the ice cream stands.

If we saw someone driving like a maniac, instead of getting enraged at the reckless incivility, we’d all pull over assuming the driver was on the way to the hospital to help deliver triplets.

It would call for more hammocks and more time to enjoy them.

TVs would still be big and hi-def, but there’d only about 40 channels.

It would be a manifesto that at its heart -- and it would have a whole lot of that -- would be more about hugs than hate.

I wish my arms were big enough to hug away all the hurt of the people for whom the world right now seems so wrong.

I’d start with the 5 million over in Norway.

Now ear this!

I peered deep into our 9-year-old’s right ear the way germ-detecting scientists peer into microscopes.

I was looking for Michael Phelps.

“I don’t see any swimmers in here,” I said.

Nine is an age when “Dad” becomes a two-syllable word.

“Da-ad! Swimmer’s ear doesn’t mean there’s a swimmer in my ear,” she said. “It’s an infection.”


That’s what the doctors say, but I’m suspicious of the entire medical profession.

In evil collusion with the dastardly pharmaceutical industry, they invent diseases and spend millions on saturation advertising to convince us we suffer from every day symptoms like sleeplessness and agitation, which to me are symptoms of things like parenting and being gainfully employed.

Next thing you know we’re eating pills the way we should be eating vegetables and we’re worried about side effects like suicidal depression, colored urine and three-hour erections.

We’re all being doctored to death.

And I’m even more suspicious of the human ear, God’s worst design.

I revel in the grandeur of a beautiful sunset, the forrest in autumn and the sight of a child running with outstretched arms toward a kneeling loved one.

There is so much splendor to savor in this world.

But what happened when God designed the human ear? It looks like it was done by interns eager to dash off to the Happy Hour.

We vainly lavish plastic surgeons with millions to shave fractions of an inch off our noses, we get our lips plumped and the drooping skin on our necks and foreheads tucked back behind our temples.

But no one ever does a thing about the ugliest part of human being north of the disgusting foot.

They hang prominently from our heads like the shutters of old haunted houses. They look like a Google Earth map of the LA freeway system.

They make no sense. They are a confusing tangle of gutters.

Really, the only thing the design is good for is keeping glasses from sliding off our heads and letting us identify society’s biggest jerks by giving them a place to stick their Bluetooths.

Sure, they make great handles if you’re interested in assaulting a bald man, but that only benefits the belligerent.

Sturdy pegs could handle all those simple tasks, although that design might pose additional discomfort for mothers during childbirth and no one who’s ever witnessed that ordeal would favor that solution.

One of my favorite bits of trivia includes another ear flaw. While the rest of the aging us is giving into gravity and getting more diminutive, the ear is always on the march.

It’s true. The eyes with which we’re born remain the same size from birth to death, but the ear and the nose (and I’ve got issues with them, too), never stop growing.

Ever see the ears of a really old person? You see less sizable kites at hang gliding conventions.

We should have ear lids like eye lids. If we want to jump in the water or some punk kid is playing the Lady Gaga too loudly, we just shut our ears the way we shut our eyes when we see Lady Gaga on TV.

And that would seem like a solution to the swimmer’s ear that’s plaguing our darling Josie.

You never hear of a dolphin suffering from swimmer’s ear and the only time they stick their heads out of the water is to nod for the trick reward anchovies at places like Sea World.

Val said the nurse at the Virginia Beach doc in the box told her there’d been 15 other kids with swimmer’s ear there already by that afternoon.

Each of their parents had to shell out $150 for a minuscule quantity of ear drops that is less than what will come vaulting out my nose when the summer allergies soon start me to sneezing.

When Val told me the drops were $150, I couldn’t believe my ears.

But I think the same thing anytime I see them in the mirror.