One of the guys we work with here, Ed from Holland, came over to our apartment one day last week to give us a little lesson on the culture here in Penang and, more specifically, the Muslim culture here. After our lesson we went and took a short tour around a couple of the streets and went into one of the Chinese temples and a mosque.
The man who worked at the mosque as the tour guide was super nice and walked us around the grounds answering any questions we had. We talked to him a little bit about the prayers that call out over the streets seven times a day and the fact that they are all in Arabic despite the fact that not every Muslim here in Malaysia speaks or even understands Arabic. He said that although people don’t know what these Arabic prayers mean, they get rewards in heaven just for speaking in Arabic. So of course my first, obviously judgemental and way out of line, thought was, “That’s stupid, they don’t even know what they are saying and they say it seven times a day.”
Then I got to thinking.
The man who worked at the mosque as the tour guide was super nice and walked us around the grounds answering any questions we had. We talked to him a little bit about the prayers that call out over the streets seven times a day and the fact that they are all in Arabic despite the fact that not every Muslim here in Malaysia speaks or even understands Arabic. He said that although people don’t know what these Arabic prayers mean, they get rewards in heaven just for speaking in Arabic. So of course my first, obviously judgemental and way out of line, thought was, “That’s stupid, they don’t even know what they are saying and they say it seven times a day.”
Then I got to thinking.
Do we actually know what we are saying when we pray? Having spent many years in an Anglican church, we would recite scripted prayers like the Nicene Creed and the Lord’s prayer every Sunday; after a few years you don’t even need to read the bulletin anymore, youve got it down pat.
But do we really know what we are saying when we pray these scripted prayers?
I think we can get lost in the monotonous robotic reciting of it and then we have no idea what we are even praying. I don’t know about you, but I’m particularly good at this where I can even think through my to-do list while still reciting things out loud. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think praying the Lord’s prayer is bad, just the opposite in fact. The Lord’s prayer was given to us straight from the source. But do we ever stop to think about and understand how awesome (in the literal sense) that is?
I think it’s time to stop saying (or praying) things for the sake of saying them and really begin to understand and own the things that we speak into.
At least I do.
