And who is my neighbor?

Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way” (II Corinthians 6:12, Eugene H. Peterson, The Message). While this arresting Bible paraphrase was addressed to a group of first-century Christians, it could just as easily speak to the tribalism that dominates today’s news cycles and community conversations. 

Are we drawing smaller and smaller circles around our neighbors, seeing them only as those who fit within our interests, politics, demographics, or nationalities? Without challenging this smallness, we’ll minimize the impact of our prayers on our own lives as well as on the world.

In Christian Science, prayer opens us up to the infinitude of God and God’s all-inclusive goodness—not as something beyond this world but as the spiritual reality we can experience here and now. Prayer isn’t, however, about asking the Divine to fix human problems. It’s about humbly and wholeheartedly acknowledging the magnitude of what God is and does as unchanging Love and eternal Life, as boundless Spirit and immeasurable Mind. As we let inspiration infuse our prayers, we begin to realize that whatever seems to constrain us—whether it’s pain, illness, inability, lack, or vulnerability—cannot and does not exist within the omnipotence and omnipresence of God. It must yield. And healing is the natural outcome.