This article first appeared in the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader on July 22, 2021.

When I was a boy growing up in the denomination of my youth, I always found prayer off-putting. I found almost everything about religion off-putting, but prayer especially so.

It always seemed to me, given my 12-year-old's nascent smugness, that the men who prayed in our church services -- the supplicants always were men, women not being allowed to address God publicly -- adopted these otherworldly facial expressions that registered somewhere between archangelic piety and an especially sharp gas pain.

(I knew this because I only pretended to close my eyes. The show was too good to miss.)

Then, having captured the proper face, they'd launch into a practiced stentorian baritone and, most grating of all, Ki

See Full Page