Close The Door

 There is a "prayer space" in the Student Union on the campus where I work. There are some meditation cushions on the floor, some paintings on the wall, etc. It is partitioned off by an open-wall, so it's easy enough to peer in and check out the space, as it is semi-exposed to the rest of the 3rd floor.

I could see our Muslim students using this space for salah, or orthodox Jewish students maybe, or a Buddhist-esque student doing some meditation here. There's nothing per se that would preclude a Christian from praying here either, as our God is here, there, and everywhere. 

For me personally, I have never prayed here. Mostly because it feels like a profane space, kind of like having one temple among many in ancient Rome set aside for Christians to engage in worship in. Don't cast your pearls before swine, our Lord tells us. Obviously for these kinds of secular prayer spaces they have to kind of reduce things to the lowest-common ecumenical denominator. 

But there's another reason as well--for the Christian, prayer is intimacy with God. The spousal comparisons in scripture are relevant here. In prayer, we commune with the Lord. Such intimacy is perhaps why Jesus admonishes his followers when they pray to "go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father who is unseen" (Mt 6:6). 

There was an awful movie with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman called Eyes Wide Shut, which was basically about these orgy parties for rich people where they would just have sex in big groups in front of everyone else. It's disturbing when you think about it--sexual intimacy should take place behind closed doors, between married people and no one else. 

Prayer is where we become intimate with God. Again, you can pray anywhere, but why does our Lord say to close the door? It is so we can strip down and expose our sinful nature, our naked need. That is one way in which Christian prayer is different--we are not communing with an unnamed deity or an indifferent Creator, but with a lover. 

Obviously there is a place for public prayer, and Christians can pray anywhere they feel called to--on the sidewalk outside of an abortion clinic, on a football field or in a locker room, at the cafeteria table, etc. But the kind of prayer in which the Lord Jesus felt inclined to withdraw to a lonely place to pray (Lk 5:16) away from prying eyes, and he could commune with the Father in secret. This is where "deep calls to deep"  (Ps 42:7), where one can strip and lie prostrate and naked before his Creator as the day he was born.