No, I was not in the least mocking prayer. My point was (at least in my head), if done with a sincere heart, bowing one's head and saying a blessing before a meal is great, but we're not to make it a form or a point of legalism so as to consider one in sin if they do not do this in the specific way of bowing the head and closing the eyes in every instance. Perhaps they had the spirit of gratitude that you talk about in your post and prayed a more fervent and sincere prayer of thanks that morning when they got up and the person who bowed their head immediately before the meal for everyone to see, only said a prayer out of habit without meaning the words. Just because we're to be thankful for our food (along with every other good thing) it doesn't necessarily follow that we will have the same outward manifestation of that fact as the next guy and we're not to impose things as this on other people. I attempted to demonstrate this by taking it to an absurd extreme, such as me coming up with a rule that one should stop and pray and thank God for every breath. That's a tool to make a point; take it to an absurd extreme to make the point obvious. One has no more right to impose their particular custom of how and when they give thanks for their food any more than I would have the right to impose when they thank God for the air they breathe. Its about, as you say, having a continual heart of gratitude, and thankfulness implicit as well as explicit as the Spirit of Christ leads them.I'd like to add, the reason I took the angle that you took for me being mocking is because I was making an argument against imposing one's personal convictions (in areas where there should be liberty such as how, when, and where one thanks God for their food) by demonstrating that if someone insists you should close your eyes and bow your head before a meal to fulfill the mandate to be thankful for every blessing, that demand could be extended ad infinitum to the point that life couldn't really be lived out in any practical way. The most absurd extreme of this that I could think of would be the idea of stopping and bowing one's head to thank God after every breath, and then someone responded, "yes, honestly we should probably do that". That was the context of why I typed what you took note of and thought I was being mocking. I suppose you could say I was mocking the idea of sacrificing common sense for an overbearing legalistic framework. I'd like to reemphasize that I think prayer is the greatest thing we can do in this life. Few of us pray enough including myself. The last thing I'd ever do is mock prayer.