Prayer Stretches Our Outlook

MARJORIE M. FARNSWORTH

As I look out of my office window here on the fourteenth floor of the new building we have just occupied, I face toward the west and the distant hills. In between are the many city buildings and high-rise apartments, only partly hidden by occasional green trees. I think of the hundreds and hundreds of people living and working in this area.

I ask myself, "How much am I loving these people?" Are they just a bunch of humans I don't identify with and would prefer to forget? People with lots of problems—of supply, health, mental stress, of hates and fears and frustrations? I may be tempted to say to myself, "I can't do anything about all these people. It's best not to think about them. To think about them only makes me unhappy."

Christian Science is teaching me I must be concerned about my fellowmen. In accord with Jesus' teachings in the New Testament, we strive to love our neighbor. I can't leave him outside my mental door. I must love him. But how can I love a lot of people I don't know and don't care about knowing? Even if I wanted to, I haven't time to become involved in their problems.

Man is the child of God, Christian Science teaches me. If this seems abstract, I must reach out and mentally embrace those people in spiritual affection. Otherwise I cannot know what love is. Mrs. Eddy says, "Universal Love is the divine way in Christian Science."^{Science and Health, p. 266;}

Gradually the thought dawns on me that I must include all humanity in my prayers. God loves and cares for all. I have an individual responsibility to know that God's goodness and power and truth governs, protects, and heals everyone, everywhere. I must believe that all are always enfolded in the loving care of their Father-Mother God.

Can I expect God to answer my prayers if I do not reflect His love to others? Divine Love is ever present to meet human needs. I can remember that in the hospitals the healing Christ, able to destroy fear, pain, and suffering, is present at every bedside. The law of Spirit, the law of divine control, is superior to the claims of matter and material medicine. Man is not under a law of sin and death. Misunderstanding of God has no real power to condemn men to suffering and oblivion.

Now I feel that the burden is lifting from me. I see that I am living in God's world, surrounded by God's ideas here and now. I see that Christ Jesus was sent into the world to show us God's way. And I begin to understand that the governments of the world are in His hands, even the politicians actually subject to God's law. How wonderful to remember there is just one world and that one is God's; one Church, His Church; one intelligence, His intelligence. "We are not divided,/All one body we,/One in hope and doctrine,/One in charity,"^{Christian Science Hymnal, No. 264;} goes the hymn.

In this sense of universal love, universal good, we can find peace, for we become conscious that God is everywhere and cares for all. The Bible reminds us, "And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also."^{I John 4:21;}

How our thought expands when we read this statement by Mrs. Eddy: "God is universal; confined to no spot, defined by no dogma, appropriated by no sect. Not more to one than to all, is God demonstrable as divine Life, Truth, and Love; and His people are they that reflect Him—that reflect Love."^{Miscellaneous Writings, p. 150.}

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