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Prayer
the how and why
As a very green young chaplain in the British Army, I will never forget the words of encouragement I received from a certain sergeant-major on my first operational tour of duty. I had been talking to him about the value of prayer and asking how it fit in with military personnel. He gave what I realise now is a stock answer: “even an atheist will pray in a foxhole, Padre.”
The tour included routine border patrols, often undercover, for a month at a time, sleeping in lightly scraped out “foxholes”, camouflaged and under constant threat of attack. It was not difficult to see why someone might appeal to whatever is out there for protection.
At the time, I took his comment to be a joke, but the subsequent 17 years in the British Army convinced me that it is absolutely true. What amazes me most is that this approach to prayer is indistinguishable from that used in ancient Rome and other cultures, particularly by soldiers.
The Roman shorthand was “do ut des”, which means: “I give, so that you may give.” In other words, prayer was seen very much as a contract with a deity and this was usually sealed by animal sacrifice. As someone who lives in Italy, I sometimes wonder if that quid pro quo concept still lingers on in the minds of some people praying here.