Thought must move!

Praying the Lord's Prayer doesn't need to feel stale or rote.

Kay Olson

I was a less-than-successful basketball player. In high school I barely made the second string team. But I loved to watch the game.

Basketball has been around since 1891 when a physical education teacher, James Naismith, developed it at a YMCA training school in Massachusetts. Two teams were supposed to throw the ball around until one member managed to toss the ball into a peach basket perched at the top of a high post. The ball was retrieved manually by climbing a ladder.

Soon, a hammock style basket replaced the peach basket. The ball was retrieved manually again—this time by using a pole to pop the ball out. Believe it or not, it took another decade until someone thought to let the ball drop to the floor! I wonder if Dr. Naismith ever asked himself, “Why didn’t I think of that before?” The possibility had been there all along.

I guess all of us have had times when we’ve asked ourselves, Why didn’t I think of this “earlier in the game”? I think the basketball story illustrates something Mary Baker Eddy once said to a student: “the thought must move!” (Lida Fitzpatrick’s diary entry for May 13, 1903, The Mary Baker Eddy Library). Just as thought-movement was good for the progress and future of basketball, it is essential for spiritual progress.

Years ago, I began to dig more deeply into the Lord’s Prayer. I thought about how, as Christians, we pray this prayer a lot. It is included in most church services and is usually included in a Christian’s everyday prayer life. But does it ever happen that the prayer becomes “fixed” and static? Does thought really engage and move each time we pray the Lord’s Prayer? I was thinking about this, wanting to be sure I was praying the prayer and not merely saying the prayer. I wanted my thought to be moved by the Christ—God’s message of love and power—each time I prayed.

In my study of the prayer, I came across this reference in Science and Health: “Only as we rise above all material sensuousness and sin, can we reach the heaven-born aspiration and spiritual consciousness, which is indicated in the Lord’s Prayer and which instantaneously heals the sick” (p. 16).

Does thought really engage and move each time we pray the Lord's Prayer?

I wondered, Could I ever really “rise above all material sensuousness and sin”? Could I reach the “heaven-born aspiration and spiritual consciousness, which is indicated in the Lord’s Prayer”?

Sometime during this period, I was suddenly troubled by a racing heartbeat. I realized that prayer could move my thought to accept a healing. So I prayed and then, although my heart was still racing, I decided to get in bed and rest. I soon fell asleep.

When I awoke in the middle of the night, I sat up in bed. I felt that nothing had changed. Realizing that not only could my thought be moved by prayer, but that it must move, I began to pray again. I prayed the Lord’s Prayer. When I reached “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (Matthew 6:12), it was like I was seeing the words us, our, and we, shining just like a neon sign. In a flash I thought: “This prayer is for everyone. And, it’s for her, too.” Who’s “her” you may ask?

She was a long-ago friend. It felt like she’d dropped our friendship with a thud, and I’d had trouble forgiving. I suddenly knew she was forgiven. And I felt forgiven for any resentment, too. As I lay back on my pillow, I realized that my heart was beating normally.

Now why didn’t I think of this before? I knew those words. I knew they meant that I would be forgiven and the mental turmoil about this situation would end, when I forgave. But that night I gave myself entirely over to that prayer. I prayed those words with my whole heart and I was moved by the healing power of Christly compassion and forgiveness.

Thought can move. Thought must move. Thought does move. And when it does, there is healing.

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