Article December 24, 1979 Issue

No abracadabra in Science

MARK WILLIAM HENDRICKSON

I grew up believing that God was sort of a super Santa Claus. If humans prayed to God for something with sincerity, concentration, and the right words, they would get whatever they asked for all the time, I thought. Just as magicians achieved miraculous results by saying "abracadabra," Christians supposedly could get supernatural help by saying the Lord's Prayer. I gradually lost my belief in this concept of God because my prayers brought much less fruition than my annual letter to Santa Claus.

Years later I became convinced through a series of circumstances that there is indeed an Almighty God. First, I was healed instantaneously of a disease through scientific treatment (application of God's spiritual laws of universal health, holiness, and harmony) by a Christian Science practitioner. Then I began to study the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy. The nature of God and my relationship to Him became increasingly clear to me as I read and reread the chapter "Prayer." A new concept of God and man began to dawn. I began to realize that God isn't an arbitrary superbeing shrouded in mystery. He is, rather, the infinite, loving, impartial Principle of all being. His omnipresence and infinitude were revealed to the inspired prophet: "Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off?"^{Jer. 23:23;}

The incisive questions and powerful answers in the chapter "Prayer" in Science and Health cut through the selfish, mortal egotism which earlier had made me believe that God's activity could be conformed to willful outlining. And while I was being humbled, I was also feeling great joy and hope. I could see that God is all-power, that He is Love, and this made me feel that His love for me would always be manifested—not because of any abracadabra but because it is God's nature to love His idea, man. We don't need to petition God for blessings. We just need to gratefully accept and to humbly discern the blessings that He already has bestowed upon His children. Then these blessings—or spiritual realities—correct (heal) every human need. For me, a key sentence in this chapter is: "Prayer cannot change the Science of being, but it tends to bring us into harmony with it."^{Science and Health, p. 2.}