If you pray, feel free.  If you choose to pray for me, go ahead.  But please keep your prayers to yourself.  Respectfully, I don’t need to hear them or want to hear them.  That’s not a judgment on your prayers or taking your right to pray away from you.  It’s simply one person asking another person to please keep prayer out of their face and ears.  Thanks!

Have you ever been “Prayed AT”?  I have.  How about “Prayed against”?  Oh yes.  Prayer as a weapon … how nice, how loving, how Christian (other religions don’t seem to have the same need to attack people with prayer or force prayer on others).  Jesus instructed his followers to pray in private.

Have you ever met a Christian who obeys Jesus’ instructions on prayer?

People are free to pray wherever they wish.  Students can pray in school, if not disruptive in an educational environment.  But praying in public doesn’t mean using prayer to preach.  Free speech doesn’t mean you can stand outside my door with a bullhorn and shout at me.  Maybe you can, which means I can do the same at your house.  Noise ordinances may apply … and angry neighbors.

Some things are perhaps a “Right,” but are they right?

So, there aren’t really any actual “Prayer-Free” Zones.  Yet, as I say, kindly keep your prayers to yourself.  That is, if you are a “kindly” person.

I was joking again with my wife this morning.  Due to her Southern roots, and Christian background, she will often exclaim, “LORD!” when upset, disgusted or surprised.  My response, once again, was: “Hey!  This is a Prayer-Free Zone!  No praying in this house!” Of course, I’m joking … and … I’m very glad she laughs with me and doesn’t subject me to any praying.  I think she would agree with Frederick Douglass, a kindly believer himself, who famously wrote*:

“I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.”

IF this is what someone means by praying, maybe we could “pray” together?

{*I think the quote is from his “Narrative,” but I haven’t found the exact location}