Prayer, sleep and vile vile work.

Morning chumlies, and what a difference 6 hours sleep can make to a gal's humour. Why I had to spend almost one hour on the phone earlier and I didn't snap or snarl or disinfect my hands once. Huzzah.
And how odd that there should be a brouhaha brewing in Carlow over whether a council meeting should have the Our Father said before it convenes to discuss council meeting. It really got quite heated on Brenda Power's show earlier with the pro-prayer dude claiming that prayer helped folk make decisions and could stop blood and all manner of things and the anti-prayer chap saying prayer had no place at a council meeting.
Are we that secular? Does it do any harm? I can't make up my mind about it. I'm agnostic and don't for a moment believe in the power of prayer, but I allow that for others it is a source of peace and comfort so why would I object to it? MY mother often claims she's going to pray for me, I couldn't care less, it's rather like her saying she's going to plant daffodils for me out the back of her house.
Maybe I'm wrong though, I frequently am. I mean I hate reiki and that's a form of prayer, but a commercial version. Can I hold an undiminished and implacable hatred for reiki and yet be indifferent to a prayer before a meeting?
What do we think? Would reciting a prayer before a meeting skeeve you out completely or would you hold a benign tolerance for it?