So to pray in the classroom ought to be done exactly as you describe, in my opinion: it ought to be the prayer of the angels gathered about the throne above (a prayer raised by, interestingly enough, the sons of God according to the Lord speaking to Job). The devil, encircled with his satanic angels, will still accuse, but we can weather that storm of accusation in the grace of Christ.

I hope that clarifies my own position, and that I’m not suggesting that we ought to be seeking suffering in that prayer. We seek, rather, a name at the hand of God.

Don’t get me wrong. It is most certainly a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God, and I would not recommend taking any prayer lightly. However, lighten UP. Please.

I think you are juxtaposing two ideas for the sake of discussion. I feel to disagree with you.

If everyone in that classroom ever has the good fortune to meet around the throne of God, the prayers we would collectively offer would be overflowing with tears of heart-felt gratitude. If the prayer in the classroom foreshadows anything, please let it be a shadow of that moment.

Brian #1: I’ve found myself doing much the same thing. I pay very close attention to opening prayers but far less to closing prayers. At least when I teach adults. When I teach youth, there tends to be so much more of the Spirit present that I listen carefully to how they respond to that Spirit when they pray at the end of class (besides the fact that we don’t have our own opening prayer in priests quorum after “priesthood opening exercises.” Perhaps I ought to suggest that we change that.

Robert #2: I’ll respond about ordeal below in my response to John. The text might become typologically the Father (it is certainly what we bow to in class), but I don’t know that I want to be so strict about drawing equivalences. I think the point is that the classroom is transformed in the typological moment: rather than so many doctors, lawyers, and the rest of us talking about whether or not one should trust McConkie’s Mormon Doctrine, the classroom becomes the Son (or so many sons and daughters) pleading before the Father as the Spirit binds them together (though we remain, all the while, so many doctors, lawyers, and the rest of us talking about whether or not one should trust McConkie’s Mormon Doctrine). As to your other paragraph, I like what you say, but I think you misread me (I didn’t mean to suggest that the week was a lesson, but that the week was the unreality that stretches between the reality of the lessons.

John #3: Your comments seem to alternate between agreeing on my ordeal terminology and disagreeing with it. I’m not sure I know what you were trying to say exactly. But I do mean ordeal in the literal sense, though I’m thinking of it more existentially perhaps. My point is ultimately to say that if prayer generally is an ordeal (an anticipation of the judgment), then it ought to be so in class. The meaning of that ordeal is complex, as your comments make quite clear: when you pray in class, you don’t pray about your struggling kid, but about the situation there. But I don’t think the prayer anticipates the judgment any less for its collective nature there: rather, it anticipates the judgment of the community, of the classroom, of the moment where the whole class will be called upon to answer for the time they had to improve there (perhaps…). Ordeal and judgment: praising, pleading, even petitioning, and so being proven.

ordeal: a primitive method of determining a person’s guilt or innocence by subjecting the accused person to dangerous or painful tests believed to be under divine control; escape was usually taken as a sign of innocence.

I use this definition with tongue firmly in cheek, BTW. Is this how you envision your “judgment event?”

When was the last time a personal prayer turned into an ordeal? Believe me when I say I’ve had my share of prayerful ordeals! When I approach the Lord and He chastens me, I know it. When He asks me to do something that I have been avoiding, I know it. I know when I need to repent and humble myself; I have spent hours on my knees seeking for forgiveness and guidance. The distinction is obvious, the ordeal unavoidable, and the prayer always intense and very personal.

Prayer in the classroom doesn’t even come close.

I’ve only heard one person actually ask the Lord to “forgive us our sins” during an opening prayer at church–the stake patriarch. I took note; he knew who it was to whom he spoke. When speaking to God on behalf of a room full of people, follow your heart. Do not wrestle with God unnecessarily in that moment, but offer him the full respect he deserves. Thank him profusely, and ask him for appropriate blessings.

By all means, follow the promptings of the Spirit as much as possible when you pray in meetings! What a great opportunity to experience that “faint and tiny leading” that fills your mouth with words as you open it to pray, and brings to your mind thoughts of profound understanding and deep thanksgiving.

Praying openly in a meeting of like-minded people is such a great blessing. Just think how different the experience would be if you were doing it on a public street corner, or in a crowded room of mocking non-believers. That would be a very different kind of ordeal, indeed!

The week as a lesson between two Sabbath prayers–intresting idea.

I have a hard time grasping what prayer as an ordeal really entails. I remember on my mission thinking of prayer as analogous to reporting to, say, a district leader. That’s one way to think about judgment isn’t it? We give an account of who we are, what we’ve done, who we’ve become etc. Is this a good way to think about prayer? (In some ways I think yes, but in many ways no though I can’t quite put my finger on the reasons for no….)

Applied to the classroom, are the scriptures themselves typologically the Father and everyone in the class sons? Is the one speaking (usually the teacher) the Father? Is the teacher the Father even when the students are speaking? I’m not sure how to think about this productively.

Building on the idea of the week as a class between two Sabbaths, I think this has interesting parallels to the High Priest entering and then exiting the temple recurrently. In fact, I think this may be a way to read the puzzling verse in John 3:13 for this week’s SS lesson: “No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.” Is this playing on the reversal of the ascending/descending pattern that we go through in visiting the temple? The pattern for us, as set for us by, say, Moses or Isaiah, is to ascend from earth to the temple mount, and then descend again to the earth spiritually anew. But Christ, to save us, descends from heaven to earth and then ascends again in the resurrection (and on the cross per v. 14)?

And thanks for the thoughts on Hebrews.