"Dear, Lord. We're here today to..."

Another prayer before a meal.

"...and I want to thank you for everything that..."

Maybe this one isn't going to say it. Please don't say it.

"Watch over us while we..."

Don't say it.

"Bless this food to the nourishment of our bodi-"

AHHHHHH! WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN!?

Bless this food to our bodies?

Okay.. It doesn't really bother me that much when people ask God to bless food into our bodies, but it's a really weird prayer when I sit down and think about it.

Christians ask God to make food nutritious. Food already is nutritious. Food will likely remain nutritious. Making food nutritious is a box that God checked his to do list a long time ago.

Maybe it's a culture thing. I can see how this prayer would make sense in Christian cultures where there isn't a lot of food to go around. Someone praying over a meal would ask God to make the food satisfying enough to keep everyone going. I can see that. This isn't an issue in the culture I'm from.

I come from a relatively economically broad middle class community in the Mid-West US. The food at many gatherings contain various platters filled with meats, sides, a few salads, and way too many deserts. God isn't going to need to do a whole lot of blessing into our bodies. If being healthy is our goal, what we need to pray for is for God to send us a brochure to the nearest gym and some free time in our schedules.

I know the reason people in my culture pray this prayer is because of tradition. They heard someone else pray that same prayer at meals, so now they have to pray that same prayer at meals. It sound like a good Christianese prayer to pray when Christians gather. I'm not going to go to extremes to get anyone to stop using that kind of prayer, it just makes me think every time I hear it. Instead of asking God to bless this over-abundance of food into our bodies, maybe we can pray for the self-discipline to not over-nourish our bodies, or remind ourselves to shift our focus to blessing this extra food we have to the bodies of people who could use more food.

I don't know. This post is really just talk to keep me using this platform and providing an outlet for me to put some more creativity into what I write. I never actually thought I would go into religion on here, but here I am. Weird. Anyway. Have a Good One, friends!