It began with the demands of a small girl perched in the basket-seat of the shopping cart in front of me and soon developed into a high-volume shouting match between sister, brother, and mother. Hoping to bring some peace to the area by providing a diversion, I complimented the little girl on her purple shoes. Result? She began yelling at me not to look at her shoes or talk to her!

It is not my custom to close my eyes and bow my head in prayer in a public place, but that's exactly what came to me to do. My praying was not in the form of specific words at this point but simply a reaching out to God for some thoughts to calm the turbulence of this moment and help me see the beloved child of His creating.

Such a desire is prayer itself and was answered in these words from the textbook of Christian Science, Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy: "A spiritual idea has not a single element of error, and this truth removes properly whatever is offensive" (p. 463). The discord disrupting the atmosphere certainly qualified as "offensive." But God did not make any mistakes in His creation. And this child was actually God's spiritual idea, or likeness, and didn't include an unspiritual element such as rebellion.

I also recalled what the speaker at a Christian Science lecture, given the night before, had said about emphasizing the our and us when praying the Lord's Prayer. At this point I felt an all-encompassing love, embracing each and every one of us in that checkout line.

Soon there was absolute silence. I opened my eyes and the child was staring at me. Whether it was because she'd never seen anyone pray before or just wondered, "What is that lady doing with her eyes closed?" doesn't really matter. What does matter is that the calm and peace I gained were also being expressed by everyone around me. (The praying I did actually took less time than it's taken to write about it here.) I observed that the peace continued to hold even as we went into the parking lot. I had learned a valuable lesson about praying first—though not necessarily with closed eyes!

Healing for our world begins with what is going on in our own consciousness rather than "out there." As the daily news of war and chaos pours in, I have often felt overwhelmed and helpless. From my "mini-war" experience in the checkout line has come the assurance that we can make a difference right where we are in our own corner by turning to God for comfort, guidance, and peace. The Bible affirms, "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much" (James 5:16).

Where do we begin when we long for a sense of peace for ourselves and humanity? One answer can be found in this statement in Science and Health: "It is our ignorance of God, the divine Principle, which produces apparent discord, and the right understanding of Him restores harmony" (p. 390). It is necessary, then, to be more fully acquainted with the nature of God, divine Principle, who creates, causes, and maintains the order of all true existence. Because there is only one God, there can be but one Mind, and this Mind governs all through divine law.

The effect of the governance of this Principle, or Mind, when acknowledged, is illustrated again and again throughout the Bible. The book of Ecclesiastes (see chap. 9:14, 15) speaks of a "poor wise man" who delivered an entire city. Could this unknown hero have had such wisdom without yielding to the one Mind? Such individual prayer counts because of its scientific basis in divine law. The entire life and record of Christ Jesus is our prime example of the result of yielding to the one Mind. The humblest man on earth admitted to but one Ego, one source, for everything he believed in, said, and did.

What appears as the collective chaos of war begins in individual thought. What goes on is an ignorant or intentional yielding to arguments that there is a mind or power separate from God, good. This false sense of intelligence, mortal mind, is what has to be silenced. True, we cannot do another's thinking for him, but we can certainly take care of our own thinking to make sure it is Christlike, embracing all in love. What we think leads to the way we behave.

I must honestly admit here that my first impulse during the shopping-cart incident was to tell the child to hush up and shape up! And what does that say? That I would have been giving vent to frustration and annoyance. I'd be adding my own inner war to the one already going on! The solving must first be within. How important to respond through prayer rather than to react with emotion. We need not explode! "The pent-up elements of mortal mind need no terrible detonation to free them," Mrs. Eddy writes. "Envy, rivalry, hate need no temporary indulgence that they be destroyed through suffering; they should be stifled from lack of air and freedom" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 356).

It's being reported that more and more people are turning to prayer for solving problems these days because other methods just aren't working. God's promise in the Bible assures us this turning is not in vain: "So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it" (Isa. 55:11). God is ever present to heal every form of dis-ease, lack of harmony—whatever would claim to separate man from God and from his rightful heritage of peace as a child of God.

Yes, our individual prayer really counts. Yes, we can begin in our own corner to bring peace to the world. That corner may be in an office where there's friction between workers, in a family where husband and wife, parents and children, face conflicts—all microcosms of world situations. As a song about peace urges, we should let the solution begin with us.