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Eye on the World: Prayer about the Middle East region
In “What could be done to break the Israeli-Palestinian revenge cycle” The Christian Science Monitor outlines the issues in the conflict and also the efforts being made to move beyond the past: “On both sides of the border, attitudes have hardened into a mixture of resignation and fury.“ The article goes on to mention change, including one that “would yield a peace dividend for both sides.” Sari Bashi, an Israeli who works on freedom of movement for Palestinians at Tel Aviv's GISHA advocacy group, explains, “‘Economic strangling is destabilizing,’” she says. “‘If restrictions on the movement of civilians and civilian goods are lifted, in the wake of this fighting, then we have a chance, not just of delaying, but actually preventing the next round of violence.’” In the articles below, writers tell how they prayed to break cycles of hate, frustration, distrust, anger.
In “Breaking the cycles of war and peace” the author says, “In his prayer for the world, the Christian Scientist looks on war as a chronic eruption of grossly evil mentality in the collective ‘body’ of mankind and treats its appearing just as vigorously and actively as symptoms of sickness in an individual.” And he adds a few lines later, “The love of God, understood through prayer, breaks the cycles of enmity and sends them spiraling into oblivion.”
The author of “Peacebuilding in Bosnia” was herself a volunteer peacebuilder in Bosnia, and based on her own experience there, she writes, “From what I’ve seen in these sometimes intense and dramatic situations, the key to a peaceful future lies in the transforming power of the understanding that there is only one Mind and of the humility this understanding brings.”
“Bosnia—whose battle is it?” explores some of the thoughts that might keep us from praying, lead us to dismiss the situation as hopeless, and so forth. The writer insists: “Our prayers can recognize that God is indeed omnipotent, infinite good, and that there is an abundance of good for each individual no matter what ethnic or religious group he or she belongs to. This good is not materially defined, but as it finds its place in the thinking of each individual, it will be outwardly seen as the reality.”