In almost every household I have visited, there’s always a quote hanging on the wall proclaiming, “A family that prays together, stays together.” As though blood is not strong enough a bond, we now have to pray together to maintain family unity. But then again, I understand that nowadays we have given families and chosen families. I guess, for the family you choose, you have to try hard to stick together and that includes praying together.
For the family I come from, I cannot say that prayer is what makes us stay together. I can remember the last time we tried to pray together, and it was a long time ago.
If you have been around my blog long enough, you’ll know my parents are people of the cloth. So, Christian prayers were the norm in our home, almost like daily bread. Until the day our mother banned our father from calling her children for family prayers, and that marked the end of collective prayer time. Now, we don’t pray together. Let me explain.
You see, family prayer was my father’s time to shine. Not that he did not have other moments to shine. This man lives to shine…but family prayers were special shinning moments. These were moments when he could address important (according to him) family matters with a captive audience, and he truly enjoyed that role. Whenever he felt that there was a matter he wanted to address and he needed a good audience, he would call for family prayers. And then, he would shine.
On this day, it seemed that the head of our home had accumulated a long list of matters to address, and unwittingly, we had contributed to this list throughout the day. By end of day, his to-do list was overflowing. So, we were summoned to family prayers. We did not suspect anything being a foot and innocently, we assembled in our dimly lit living room after the 9pm news broadcast and sat silently in readiness for the shinning. Per tradition, the head of the home requested for someone to lead us in worship. His insistence on using the word “pambio” in reference to ‘song’ is still beyond me. While this request was always made as an open request, it was always directed to me. I was the songbird and layleader of the home. When he said someone to give us a pambio, he meant for me to lead the family in worship.
However, on this day, my brother who cannot remember when last he was in a church, unexpectedly jumped on the request belting out “Niko chini ya mwaba, mwamba juu yangu…” in his melancholic alto and smiling cheekily at the head of our home. That’s when my father’s cup tipped over and he cut short the singing. The shining moment sprung forth and could not wait any longer. This man read us for filth. All of us. Suddenly, it was judgement day, and he was reading the scroll of all our sins from his high and mighty throne. Our mother watched in silence. We, whose sins were being broadcast in the dimly lit room, watched her in silence.
Our father may have been the priest of the home but she, our mother was the keeper of the fold. Her word was law. It did not shout, it whispered and stayed. What she did, we did. So when she stayed silent and watched, we did the same. Once the priest of the home was done shinning, the keeper of the fold delivered the closing prayer. The last family prayer we would ever hear in that home. In this prayer, she asked for strength and then later, in the privacy of their room, proceeded to ban our father from ever calling us for prayers if his intention was to scold us. The man was told to find other moments to shine, not family prayers.
Three cheers for the keeper of the fold. Hip!Hip!Hooray!
Over time, we have found new ways to fellowship and stay together beyond those ‘shining’ moments. We have found ways to bring each other back to the center however far we stray. We pray for each other in our own ways and capacities. Those who still follow the faith, send out prayers to us who found God in different paths and different places. I dare say that a family that prays for each other stays together.
Now, I’d love to hear about your experiences with family prayers. Feel free to reach out to me at lochteresa97@gmail.com and share your story.