School Prayer

With all this talk about the need for prayer in school, and the potential for the state developing a prayer mutually acceptable to all, one very important perspective seems to have been missed--would God really want to listen to such a prayer?

What kind of a prayer do you think God would like to hear--a state-developed, mutually acceptable, politically and religiously correct prayer, forcibly recited by children in a halfhearted manner, within publicly owned buildings, architecturally devoid of the sacred? Or, God may prefer to hear:

* The inspired prayer of the Muslim teen-age boy, bowed in homage toward Mecca, uttered within the spiritual beauty of his mosque.

* The reflective prayer of the young girl, said in the beauty of her temple garden, as she grows in the knowledge of the ancient traditions of her Buddhist faith.

* The glorious prayer, based on ancient Hebrew Scriptures, sung by the young Jewish boy in his temple on the Sabbath.

* The simple prayer of joy and praise said by the young Protestant girl at the Easter sunrise service of her church.

* The prayer of thanksgiving said by the young Catholic boy on receiving his first Holy Communion, bathed in the inspirational shafts of light radiating down through the stained glass windows in his church.

Please--let us give God credit for some good taste!

DONALD A. BENTLEY

La Puente

* Perhaps the school prayer question can be solved by deeds (constitutionally correct) rather than words (constitutionally questionable).

Students could do any or all of the following without threatening the First Amendment.

* Bring in a can of food or a box of cereal for the hungry.

* Make an effort to become close the another student of a different creed, color or national origin.

* Help to keep this beautiful earth beautiful by depositing gum, candy wrappers, soda cans in containers.

* Leave guns, knives, bats, etc. at home.

* Use the questionable prayer time to discuss ways of realizing the ideal of the brotherhood of man.

MORRIS STEIN

Laguna Hills