NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP

For generations adults taught their children to say this prayer when they went to bed at night:

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take

I prayed this prayer a few times as a child. It was a ritual that I thought should be done. It didn’t take me long to get past this to a prayer of my own, out of my own heart. This prayer centers a little too much on death to suit me. And yet, death is real and does need to be considered.

I just hope that parents are teaching their children to pray—period. Maybe they are. I have no way of knowing. My gut feeling is that they are not teaching them to pray at all.