Editorial June 19, 1995 Issue

Prayer overcomes trauma

William E. Moody

In the face of a personal crisis or a larger disaster, like the bombing in Oklahoma City last April or the terrorist attacks on the Tokyo subway system, many issues obviously demand immediate attention. Others, though, may require longer-range commitments—things like rebuilding people's lives or their communities, reestablishing a sense of security, healing the grief or fear or deep-seated anger that can follow a tragedy.

After the Oklahoma bombing, there was talk of permanent trauma that families and residents in Oklahoma City, and throughout the United States, might have to learn to live with. Even when commentators noted positive signs of progress or a growing sense of caring and unity among people around the country, reservations remained about the possibility of actually healing the long-term traumatic effects of such a horrendous incident.

Yet, Christian teachings, following the example of Christ Jesus and the early disciples, don't accept the inevitability of permanent injury, either to the body or to the spirit of a people. The way Jesus ministered to the personal tragedies of men and women, and children, was first with profound compassion and understanding. His approach wasn't naive, a bland optimism, or an impersonal and impractical abstraction. He went right to the heart of a situation—to the urgent need right at hand—and lifted the sufferer to see something beyond the crisis and tragedy, to feel something more substantial than the sorrow and pain. He was showing people the presence, the saving power, the all-embracing love, of God, of divine Truth and Life. He was demonstrating the reality of divine good right where disease and despair, pain and hopelessness, evil and injustice, seemed so strongly to be in control of a person's experience. And the proof that Jesus was not simply an unrealistic idealist became absolutely evident because he healed. He actually destroyed the effects of disease, or a violent storm, or mental illness, or despair, or hate, or aggression, or sin.

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