Prayer is in the listening

When we actively, humbly seek divine inspiration, healing is a natural result – as a woman experienced during a meaningful interaction with her young daughter.

Christian Science Perspective audio edition
Loading the player...

I was in a hurry that snowy winter morning. I needed to get our daughter to preschool and be back at my office quickly. I buckled her in, then climbed into the driver’s seat to start the car. As I pressed down on the clutch, the snow-crusted soles of my boots slid off of the worn metal. The pedal snapped up, catching my ankle bone with its sharp edge. I heard a decided crack and immediately felt searing pain.

This was before cell phones, and I knew I could not walk back into the house to call for help. So, I turned to our preschool-aged daughter and said, “Honey, Mommy needs you to pray for her.” Our daughter closed her eyes and became very still. Within seconds the pain stopped, and I could move my foot naturally and easily.

Even though I was engaged in the full-time practice of spiritual healing, I was stunned by the immediacy of that restoration of physical movement and freedom from pain.

I turned to our daughter and said, “Honey, Mommy’s healed.” The look in her eyes said, “Of course you are.” I asked her, “When you were praying for Mommy, what were you thinking?” Her look became one of pure exasperation, and she replied, “Mommy, when I pray, I don’t think, I listen.” Her response took my breath away and changed my approach to prayer – forever.

In the first chapter of Mary Baker Eddy’s primary work on spiritual healing, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” she writes, “Prayer, watching, and working, combined with self-immolation, are God’s gracious means for accomplishing whatever has been successfully done for the Christianization and health of mankind” (p. 1). And later in the same chapter, she writes: “In order to pray aright, we must enter into the closet and shut the door. We must close the lips and silence the material senses” (p. 15).

That day, our daughter taught me that prayer is not meant to engage the human mind as a partner in healing. Instead, prayer silences the human mind. In fact, Science and Health states that the human mind “is not a factor in the Principle of Christian Science” (p. x). Prayer is not simply our means for reaching God, the divine Mind; prayer is the means by which God’s messages reach and speak to us – and this is accomplished when we listen.

Prayer that begins with words helps to clear the way for us to hear and feel the deeper, resonant voice of God “in the quiet sanctuary of earnest longings” (Science and Health, p. 15) – to know the presence of our Father-Mother God and feel Her power. Prayer is in the listening. And this listening is not of the head, but of the heart.

Originally published in the June 13, 2022, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Prayer is in the listening
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/A-Christian-Science-Perspective/2022/1014/Prayer-is-in-the-listening
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe