ITEMS OF INTEREST October 13, 2008 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

with contributions from Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, Bill Bowder

IN A WORLD where power has become almost synonymous with violence and greed, the power of prayer is one of the church's best-kept open secrets. People who know that prayer is the last resort may also teach us why it should be the first. Christians stand to learn a great deal not only from each other, crossing denominational lines with "generous orthodoxy," but also from those who pray in other traditions....

Throughout the Gospels we find evidence that our concern is to be with the concrete particulars of life. We are not to intellectualize in a way that removes our focus from the very practical concerns of tending the sick, caring for the vulnerable, participating in community life (like Calvin, who concerned himself with the sewage systems in Geneva), or voting, getting the car fixed, recycling old newspapers, making meals.

The call to deal in particulars extends to thanksgiving as well as petition. Thanksgiving seems such a simple matter—a spontaneous overflow of relief, or a habit of daily recognition that we continue to receive God's good gifts. Actually, thanksgiving is as much a discipline to be learned as any other form of prayer. It can carry us into places of great depth if we are willing to take seriously Paul's instruction to give thanks in everything.... A deeper truth is that we have what we have from the hand of the Lord. . . . Those terms are the terms not of the social contract, but of a covenant.

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