Submitted By;
Anne Cooling
Sunday School Superintendent
First Church of Christ, Scientist, Laguna Niguel
My heart goes out to the people of Haiti. This very act is a prayer whether you call it prayer or not. Most people who have felt the power and effect of prayer include God in that equation because they believe and have experienced that the power that lies behind prayer is God.
Another key element to prayer is love and in my view it is a reflection of the pure, spiritual, unconditional divine Love that is most effective. Without love, our prayers are missing the power of God behind them, even though we may be praying to God.
Mary Baker Eddy, who found from the Bible an understanding of prayer that proved effective in her experience, provided these insights, “True prayer is not asking God for love; it is learning to love, and to include all mankind in one affection.” “The test of all prayer lies in the answer to these questions: Do we love our neighbor better because of this asking? Do we pursue the old selfishness, satisfied with having prayed for something better, though we give no evidence of the sincerity of our requests by living consistently with our prayer?”
Another U.S. clergywoman, Joan Campbell commented, “Prayer is the natural language of love.” Grace Aguilar in the Spirit of Judaism wrote, “Prayer is the language of the heart.” A publicist, Barbara Grizzuti Harrison stated, “Sometimes I think that just not thinking of oneself is a form of prayer.” Yesterday, we celebrated the life of a great exemplar of this Principle of divine Love in action, Martin Luther King Jr. who shared, “We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” He also said, “The ultimate of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
Without divine Love, our responses lack what is needed to lift our thought from despair and being overwhelmed to the guidance, provision and hope that God’s presence gives to us, a response that goes beyond sympathy to compassion, beyond the material circumstances to the “still small voice” that Elijah heard in the Bible after the earthquake (I Kings 19).
Elijah was running for his life from Queen Jezebel, giving up to the hopeless situation that confronted him. God lead Elijah to change his view from the shaky ground on which he was standing to see that God was not going to be found there. After the earthquake, wind and fire, there was “a still small voice”, and there he found God. This “still small voice” lead Elijah to return to face his foe and not be disconcerted by the actions of King Ahab, so he could ultimately help his people.
In this scientific age, God is still speaking to Her creation with spiritual ideas relevant to meet our needs based on the very nature of Love Itself and the provision that accompanies the acts of Love. The earthquake is never going to show us this. The love that is reflected in the community, locally and globally, is one avenue we will see God’s goodness at work. The impoverished nature of mankind’s mismanagement of the economies of being is not going to reveal to us God’s intelligent law of supply and distribution of love and good that we participate in and bear witness to. Although I am grateful that this is bringing to everyone’s attention the needs of Haiti’s poverty that we, as a world, often forget about in the day to day activities with which we find ourselves preoccupied. Good always continues to be present to correct, align and uplift us to a Christly standard that more closely fits what God, good, has in store for His creation, originally designed, and we many times lose sight of in the midst of our own limited sense, corrupt ways and means or self-serving policies and actions.
Let Haiti be a call to immediate action of unselfish giving and an impetus for a better and more intelligent way of building and rebuilding the elements that shape our lives. This will be a more solid foundation on which to stand. Now that is a prayer, a prayer that transforms lives, hearts, communities and it starts with a change of thinking and acting, a change of heart!
Anne Cooling
Sunday School Superintendent
First Church of Christ, Scientist, Laguna Niguel
