Signs of the Times

with contributions from Tom B. Maurer, Edward Edelson

From a sermon by The Rev. Tom B. Maurer, Minister
The Park Ridge Community Church
Park Ridge, Illinois

It simply is impossible to live as a Christian—even day-to-day —without ... a spiritual dimension existing in one's life. . . .

Life makes infinitely more sense when one does have the spiritual dimension. Then one is not contributing to something that is here just today and gone tomorrow; but now one is contributing to that which is eternal, which is permanent, which is indestructible. . . .

Now prayer is the tool the Christian uses ... to create the spiritual dimension in his life. Prayer is to the Christian what a pipe wrench is to a steam fitter, or a pair of pliers to an electrician, or hammer and saw to a carpenter. . . . Prayer is any tool or technique by which we can increase our awareness of God, by which we can deepen our faith that God is not dead nor far removed, but alive and present— literally a power within! . . .

So prayer is anything that turns one on—spiritually speaking! Prayer may be formal or informal. Prayer may be, as it is for a friend of mine, talking to someone on a telephone and realizing the person on the other end of that conversation is a child of God. . . . Or prayer may be meditations while driving on a thruway or flying at 600 miles an hour. . . . Or prayer may be reading the Book of Common Prayer, or our Daily Worship Guide, or Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures [by Mary Baker Eddy].

Edward Edelson
in the World Journal Tribune New York, New York

There's a medical saying that goes something like this: "Use a new drug early, while it's still getting results." Meaning that the drug that starts out working wonders often ends up as something less than a miracle. . . .

The latest reports are part of an old, familiar pattern: a drug that offers dramatic advances at first settles down to being just another treatment after a few years.

Why? For the same reason that sugar pills "cure" so many people —because a good deal of physical illness is as much in the mind as in the body. . . .

It's usually impossible to disentangle the mental aspects of illness from the purely physical effects. Thus a circle of cause and effect is set in motion in which a patient who thinks a treatment will help him is right—because he thinks it will help him.

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