Can prayer be a powerful force for good?
Faith, hope & healing in turbulent times.
Guest commentary by Lance Matteson
“A prayer for peace on Memorial Day,” a Seattle Times editorial last year, caught my eye. Its simple cynicism-busting plea, “Let us all pray for peace today,” implies a power for good beyond the human self that we may appeal to in support of peace, progress and healing — and that brings results. This faithful conviction is still shared in some form by most people in the world — however varied their sense of God and grace.
Can prayer be a power for practical good? To me, that’s like asking whether intuition, kindness, reason and justice can be active and powerful. For many of us, including many humane atheists, the answer is clearly yes.
For me, God really is divine Love — a transcendent but palpable presence. My own experience is that prayer can indeed be an effective healing agency — though not as a mere litany or “vain repetition.”
Prayer’s unfinished work
Events around the globe over the past year suggest our prayers for peace are unfinished work. Many yearn for peace of mind in the face of the news and its foreboding sense of animus and venality in the body politic. Hamlet’s lament, “the time is out of joint,” captures the current mood.
But our response need not be despair. There is reason for hope. For starters, we are not alone. We stand in solidarity with others. And for those who take the Bible seriously, God is “a present help,” animating our efforts at reform and healing.
Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of my religion, was a close student of Jesus’ teachings on prayer. She became convinced that the evil-destroying precepts he lived and taught are still accessible and practical; both rational and “at hand.”
Far from ignoring or wishing away manifestations of evil, Eddy faced them squarely — and defiantly. She rebuked efforts to cover up evils, but she read the Bible as assuring the ultimate triumph of good (which she saw as the expression of God) over evil.
In “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” she wrote, “Whatever holds human thought in line with unselfed love, receives directly the divine power.”
For her, prayer was a conscientious alignment of thought with God, which she often called divine Love. It was also a consequent powerful mental refutation of the material discords that tend to preoccupy us all. She felt such prayer, exemplified by Jesus, serves even now to awaken us to a nobler and truer sense of life — to empower, purify, and heal with tangible impact.
Not only does such prayer inspire hope and real healing, it brings a deep sense of joy and life and purpose. Such inspiration can bless individuals, families, communities and nations.
Benefit of fostering fellowship
Organized religion at its best fosters such fellowship. A loving, joyous spirit blesses and uplifts society. This point was explored in this year’s annual meeting of the Christian Science Church. Held on June 3 in our global headquarters in Boston.
The theme was “Joy in the living Church.” Members from dozens of Washington state branch churches participated in person or online together with members from around the world. The invitation letter of the church board of directors spoke to the morale-lifting and world-changing potential of prayer:
“The psalmist sang, ‘Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God’ (Psalms 42:11). Hoping and trusting in God involves much more than putting on a brave face and wishing for something better. The kind of hope this Bible passage conveys is rooted in an understanding of the omnipotence and ever-presence of God, infinite good. This understanding gives us strength to stand up to and overcome evil individually and collectively.”
Learning the practice of effectual prayer
In this spirit, the Times’ year-old editorial urging prayer for peace continues to resonate today. It hints at the need for a deeper sense of Spirit-power, and a humble reverence for the transcendent power of Love divine.
It suggests we should take seriously the discipline and practice of learning what the Bible calls “effectual prayer.” And it speaks to the surprising everyday possibilities that spiritual intuition and selfless love can awaken in each and all.
This sense of humble, deep prayer is a unifier. When I lived in Jerusalem, my Muslim, Jewish and Christian neighbors offered a common, kind, daily greeting in one joyous word that declared their gentle, rugged, intelligent faith in the power of prayer: “Salam.” “Shalom.” “Peace.”
The views expressed in this opinion column are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of FāVS News. FāVS News values diverse perspectives and thoughtful analysis on matters of faith and spirituality.
