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…
All Wrong 