In lieu of prayer

"Let's have family prayer," I said.  Through my teenage daughter's closed door.  The two younger children were already waiting in the living room, of the house we'd moved in to last week.  We moved a mile because the house must be sold and divided in the divorce.  The oldest child had left that morning for a freshman orientation week at the college she'll start at this Fall.

Unpacked boxes everywhere.  Teen says something through the door.  All I catch is the tone, and it doesn't sound good.

"I can't hear you through the door," I say.  "We'll see you in the living room soon."

"It doesn't make sense that we're having a prayer," she says when she comes around the corner to join us.  "Half of us aren't mormon anymore."  My son and I are LDS.  My daughter considers herself agnostic.  The youngest, in elementary school, has declared herself an atheist like her father.

"I want something at the close of the day." I say.  "A ritual of some kind, to connect.  It doesn't necessarily have to be a prayer."  But a prayer, I think, is the easiest.  The alternatives I can think of are all more personal.  Telling something about your day, like at dinner?  A group hug?  Teenager bats it down because she doesn't any of us to touch her.  It's rare when she allows me to give her a hug.

The youngest suggests we sing Happy Birthday to her brother, who turned teenage this week.

I ask if we'll sing a song every night then?  I have a hard time believing that would work.

I suggest we all hold hands.  Less contact that a group hug.  Some sense for me of what a group prayer contains.  I suggest we each say something we enjoy or appreciate about the birthday boy.

Lots of rhetoric from the teen girl.  She'll be gone in two years, why does she have to pretend we're a family?  We're not like a family, she says, we're like people who happen to live together.  Prayers might have made sense when her older sister was here, who is still religious, but now there is no majority.  Lots of rhetoric about how we don't count as a family, we are not a family to her.

I want us to be a family anyway.  As much of a family, in as many ways as a family, as can be.  These children, this is family to me.  I know she wants to become independent.  I want her to gain those skills.  But also, I want her to be loved, to feel connected, and know that she is not alone.

"It's awkward," complained the youngest.  Several times, to garner favor with the teen.

Give it time.  It will be less awkward with practice.  Let us be together in morments.  There is something it will mean.

God bless this family.