Article August 12, 1996 Issue

When prayers are answered

by Kim Shippey

John Holmstrom is a writer, and an award-winning film producer and director who has traveled in forty-five countries while shooting documentaries, commercials, corporate films and videos, and a feature film.

A couple of years ago, he "hit the road" again—this time to gather material for a book about people of different backgrounds and faiths who turned to prayer for healing, often of life-threatening problems. He spoke with about eighty such people and eventually selected thirty conversations for publication in When Prayers Are Answered, a Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club selection (A Perigee Book, New York, 1995).

When we talked with John Holmstrom during a visit he made to Boston from his home in Los Angeles, he readily discussed the person in his book who had moved him most deeply. This was a man who had spent five months in an Air Force "brig" for smoking marijuana, and who had survived by reading the book of Psalms. After an undesirable discharge, the man became further involved in hard drugs and alcohol and served time in a federal prison. On his release, he met a group of people who said they would pray for him, and gradually, after the man had endured many more crises, his life was turned around. He told Mr. Holmstrom: "My spiritual life today consists of prayer, meditation, and helping other people. It's guided by love and honesty. I keep what I have by giving it away. If you give out love, honesty, and spirituality, that's what you get back."

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