Editorial November 17, 1980 Issue

Prayer priority

NATHAN A. TALBOT

So many events deserve effective prayer. Maybe you've made a list, at least a mental one, of the items that should have priority. Your own well-being probably rates at the top. Of course various family circumstances may need attention. Then there's the community, your church—don't forget next week's membership meeting—to say nothing of the national political scene. In a broader scope the world as a whole is probably on the list.

And what kind of prayer does Christian Science demand of us for consistent healing? If we're thinking of prayer as petition only, isn't God just as likely to respond to the prayers of any Christian— or for that matter, any Muslim or Jew or Shintoist? Prayer, Christian Science explains, isn't so much asking God to do something for us as it is perceiving more clearly what He is already doing for us. Prayer includes the intelligent and spiritually discerning recognition that God is infinitely perfect, that His creation flawlessly expresses this perfection.

Obviously, such an approach radically departs from material standpoints. Scientific prayer calls for spiritual understanding; it demands a discipline of thought, a reasoning from cause to effect. God is infinitely good, and as we accept Him to be supreme Cause, we see more clearly that man and the universe must be His pure effect. Such reasoning is not based on human theory but conforms to divine law.

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