Article March 10, 2003 Issue

Praying for the world

By Kathryn Dunton

I recently listened to three special representatives to the United Nations Secretary General talk at a seminar held at Harvard University. As they discussed how they handled the complex process of bringing peace, stability, and progress to the world's troublespots, my heart sank. I realized I knew barely anything about many of the regions or ruthless dictators they were discussing. Just keeping up with all that is going on in the world can easily be more than a full-time job, I realized — and yet being aware of the problems isn't enough. As a healer, my job is to pray to see the world as God sees it.

Considering the quandary of keeping up intellectually with what is going on in the world, as well as praying about it, I remembered a game I'd seen at an amusement park when our daughter was young. In the game, a player attempts to bop mechanical moles that rapidly poke their heads through holes and then quickly retreat. The game can be comical to watch but frustrating to play, as moles elude being bopped. It would appear that problems (like the mechanical moles) are popping up in the world faster than we can deal with them.

But as I prayed about the situations that the UN representatives were dealing with, I realized I could put the issues into categories and pray about various types of problems: despotism, injustice, prejudice, poverty, etc. There were common threads among the experiences of all the representatives, and I began to see patterns. For example, in one country the dictator was named "X" and in another country the dictator was named "Y," but the modus operandi and the results of their despotic control were similar. Then I realized that I had actually prayed to solve essentially similar situations in my own life. And the concept "Make it a big prayer" came to mind.