Can prayer protect us?

The current pandemic has not been without positive “side effects.” One of these is people rediscovering the benefits of prayer, according to a Wall Street Journal article entitled “The Science of Prayer” by Elizabeth Bernstein (May 17, 2020).  

The article centers around empirical evidence of prayer’s positive impact, which is encouraging to read. But what brought home to me prayer’s present reemergence was a young New Yorker explaining how prayer brings her a feeling of being protected as she is out walking in a city “ravaged” by the coronavirus. She said, “When I bust out a quick prayer, especially out loud, I feel a shift inside myself from tension and distrust to a more trusting, hopeful feeling.” 

As a Londoner regularly out walking in another great city that has felt the pandemic’s tragic impact, I identify with the thought-shifting impact that prayer has. During lockdown, I have regularly spent the permitted exercise time on “prayer walks” that bring a similar mental uplift from tension to trust, and beyond that, from caring about my own need to caring for the community. As I keep praying, my thought is inevitably uplifted still higher from what we need, to what Christian Science has helped me understand we truly have: God’s ever-present, all-powerful love, encircling and protecting everyone.