How can we honor diversity at moments of public reverence? While it is easy to enjoy friends of many religions in our neighborhoods and workplaces, how can we embrace people of different faiths when we are asked to offer an invocation or blessing at a public event, or when we select someone to offer such remarks?

Prayers at public gatherings are common. Professional associations, volunteer agencies, service clubs, and legislative bodies often begin an event or meal with public prayer. As membership becomes more diverse, we may need to enlarge our understanding of how to be inclusive and effective.

Inclusive prayers as a way of offering respect
Public prayer requires understanding the group on whose behalf one prays, and finding the words in which all can join in spirit. We do not want to offend those of different faiths by offering invocations or blessings that exclude them, but ways of embracing everyone are not always obvious.

While traditional prayers may require the group to stretch, inclusive prayers require the person offering the prayer to stretch, reaching for language large enough to include every person in the group. Because group members want to join in the prayer and not be spectators of someone else’s prayer, terms specific to any one faith are avoided. The prayer is nonetheless genuine. Its authenticity arises from the confluence of many traditions, not just one.

Guidelines for inclusive prayer
How does one offer an inclusive prayer? Here are some suggestions and observations.

• Prayer in a public setting need not advocate personal beliefs. The leader should voice the aspirations of all present. By modeling respect for one another, a leader’s non-sectarian religious utterance can place the particular occasion in the largest spiritual context.
  
• Some situations may allow an inspirational reading instead of a prayer. A poem like “I thank You God for most this amazing” by E. E. Cummings may be effective.
  
• Using the word God may exclude Buddhists, atheists, and others. Some consider terms like Lord patriarchal are too culture-bound to evoke a broad understanding of the sacred. Instead, a poetic phrase may satisfy many people. For example, “Spirit of Love” can be meaningful both to a Christian as a way of naming God, and to an atheist as a secular personification.
  
• If this phrase is followed by a brief description, the group can more easily focus on the special dimension of the sacred being addressed. For example, at a civil function, one can open with the phrase, “O Spirit of Generations,” followed by “who gives us a heritage of freedom and a city of enormous talent...”
  
• A statement of gratitude is always appropriate.
  
• Petitions may follow, but remember that prayer that craves a particular commodity, anything less than all good, is vicious.
  
• Some like to close public prayers with “Peace” or “So let it be.”

Terms of Address
The Infinite can be named many ways, in different situations: - God - Infinite Energy - Spirit of Love - Source of all - All-encompassing Spirit - Spirit of ongoing creation - Universal Spirit - Spirit of Ages and Generations - Creator of this day and of all times and places - Power of Nature, Power of Self, Power of History - O True Life - Way of the Universe - Thou One which art Many - Eternal Presences - Sacred Powers - Creative Void - Eternal Spirit of Possibility - You who are called by many names in many tongues in many lands: God, Sat Nam, Tao, Wakan, Brahman, Adonai, Dharmadhatu, Allah, Kami…

Three types of gatherings
The role and nature of prayer needs to fit the purpose of the gathering and those who are participating in it.

Civil functions
A naturalization ceremony, a graduation at a public university, and a prayer before a legislative body require the greatest care to protect the American tradition of religious liberty, respecting each individual’s conscience. No appearance of governmental sponsorship of prayer should be given.

Social and civic occasions
Groups based in neither government nor religion, such as a professional association, a volunteer agency, or a service club, may have customary practices that may need to become more inclusive as membership becomes more diverse.

Religious meetings
An organization or event that explicitly embraces several faiths has two options: (1) It may invite representatives of several traditions to pray in the manner of their own faiths, or (2) If only one person prays, say, for a group of Christians, Jews, and Muslims, the prayer can either weave together elements of the several faiths — “We give thanks for teachers in our several traditions, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad” — or the prayer may use only those elements common to those faiths — “God, who brings us this day.”

© Vern Barnet, Overland Park, KS (www.cres.org)