Every day before every meal, Dad prays. He’s done that for my entire life. Except for meals in restaurants, he has begun every meal with a prayer. And it’s almost always the same prayer.

“Almighty, most great, and holy Father, we come before your throne…” Thus he begins — the magic words. It’s a good example of how some prayers seem to be automatic, without much or any thought at all. It just sounds reverent. “Almighty” and “most great” mean the same thing. If God is “almighty” he’s definitely the “most great” being.

And why “most great” instead of “greatest”? It just sounds more — I don’t know. Old fashioned? (If that’s the case, why not use “thee” and “thy” like so many do? “We thank thee for thy mercies” and that type of thing.)

Another thing he says that just confuses me: “Bless this food. Use it to nourish and strengthen us.” Just what is this blessing? What does it accomplish? Is it healthier? Is it less fattening? Is it better tasting? And could a Christian differentiate between blessed and unblessed food?

The “use it to nourish and strengthen us” bit is especially confusing: is this a suggestion that, without these magic words, the food would merely sit in our bellies and pass through our colon without any effect at all? Isn’t food digestion just a natural biological process that in no way depends upon anyone’s will? I suppose there’s the idea that God set in motion the laws that make all this happen, but even if that’s the case, they continue running without him. Our bodies are going to get nourishment from food with or without the magic words.

Always after this bit about nourishing and strengthening us is this odd request: “Keep us in your holy and righteous name.” What does it mean to keep someone in someone else’s name?  I suppose it’s like in John 17:11, having somehow to do with protection “protect them by the power of your name,” but that doesn’t really make matters any clearer. How does the power of someone’s name protect us? Only in the sense that the offending person is afraid of the protector’s name, in other words, afraid of what the protector might do to them. In this case, what will the Christian god do? The days of Biblical smiting are long gone: he doesn’t seem to do much of anything remotely as impressive.