A quick guide to make others think that you’re doing it right.
- Have a trembling voice. The more trembling the better.
- Make sure that y0ur prayers go on for at least 15 minutes.
- Remember that God is very distant, so speak up.
- Your prayers are for the benefit of everyone around you, so make sure thay know what you are doing for them. You, after all, are a particularly Spiritual person.
- Wash your hands before you pray. God doesn’t like it if you are dirty. Better still, keep your hands clean – let the less spiritual people do the dirty work.
- Be thoughtful of others around you – ask God to mend their faults, detailing them out loud. If you can’t think of any actual faults, guess about some likely ones. You will probably be right.
- If someone has told you something in confidence, it is OK to tell God about it. If other people happen to overhear, that’s their bad.
- Make sure you don’t get interrupted. The Still Small Voice can be quite disruptive – block it out by focusing on your own agenda.
- It isn’t gossip if you mean to pray about it: encourage others to dig the dirt on their friends and neighbours.
- Always pray for things that are actually likely to happen anyway. That way,nobody will be disappointed.
- Pray in a group if possible. Then more people will know how holy you are.
- Pray for the sick, that they will suffer quietly so as not to be a burden to others and to get in the way of the real work of the Church.
- Use plenty of King James words, lots of ‘thee’ and ‘thou’. Don’t worry if you don’t know any actual Bible verses; you can make them up. Nobody actually reads the Bible these days, so nobody will actually know, will they?
- Don’t be fooled! Your prayers are not for God to answer, but for you to pray. If you actually expect an answer, God might actually turn up. How scary would that be?
Alternatively…