The prayer that trumps economic politics

Washington has been scrambling. Can a real and workable solution to the economic crisis move within its reach? As President Bush gathered congressional leaders—including Senators Obama and McCain—to a White House meeting recently to seek that solution, a set of questions hung in the air. In the midst of a hotly contested presidential election, could bipartisanship trump politics? Could political posturing give way to genuine problem-solving? Could partisan bickering be stilled so consensus could actually emerge?

If getting the right answers—and therefore the workable solutions—seems an uncertainty, maybe one should consider another question. Perhaps to many people it’s surprising to even ask at a time such as now. But take a moment to consider this. Does prayer trump politics? Does the prayer in which one turns unreservedly to the Almighty have a way of humbling the biggest egos, stilling the most determined maneuvering, quieting the noisiest grandstanding?

Yes. There is something positive that ordinary people can do. They can do it before consensus is reached and afterwards as well. People far from the levers of power in Washington or on Wall Street can take this step. And they can keep taking it as long as needed. They can pray. They can turn unreservedly to the almighty God, who is also the one Mind, the one supreme Knower and source of intelligence. Such prayer not only brings peace of mind to the person praying, it also has a unifying impact. It helps bring sanity and clarity to key discussions taking place, even if those discussions occur far from the person praying. That can happen because, even if you are thousands of miles from meetings in Washington, the God you are praying to is not. He is both present with you, and present with those in decision-making positions.

The political-storm-quelling authority of God, of the one Mind, is already there, already at work, already transforming wrong-headedness to right-mindedness. The Psalmist put it this way, “God is greatly to be feared (some translations say “revered”) in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him. O Lord God of hosts, who is a strong Lord like unto thee? Or to thy faithfulness round about thee? Thou rulest the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them”.

That divine power outlined in a psalm of the Old Testament is illustrated in an episode in the New Testament. Christ Jesus quite plainly stilled a storm at sea. Maybe the vividness of that moment helps us to glimpse the stupendous, and stupendously calming, power at work in genuine, Christly prayer. That storm-stilling power is as applicable to a political tornado as it was to a literal one. Prayer is the means by which people can draw on divine power. Prayer is what God provides us. He gives it to us so we can stay in touch with Him. It is ours to utilize in our quest to come ever closer to Him. It is ours to employ whenever we individually or collectively face the smallest or the largest of challenges.

Sure, silent prayer taking place deep in a person’s heart is one of the quietest, one of the least-heralded actions he or she could take. But that dimension of prayer is a plus not a minus. A politician may feel compelled to array himself/herself against even a good idea, if an opponent presents the good idea. But nobody is likely to array themselves against someone’s silently turning to the one all-knowing Mind. So the healing action of prayer goes forward unimpeded.

Mary Baker Eddy, a spiritual visionary from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, discovered that the power of God was consistently reliable. She realized this consistently reliable spiritual power, illustrated most clearly in the ministry of Christ Jesus, was scientific. She called her discovery Christian Science. In her primary work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, she wrote this sweeping passage, “One infinite God, good, unifies men and nations; constitutes the brotherhood of man; ends wars; fulfils the Scripture, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself;’ annihilates pagan and Christian idolatry,--whatever is wrong in social, civil, criminal, political, and religious codes; equalizes the sexes; annuls the curse on man, and leaves nothing that can sin, suffer, be punished or destroyed”.

Now, realize that in prayer, and you’ve done something wondrously helpful. You’ve engaged in the prayer that trumps politics.

Channing Walker is a Christian Science practitioner from Mountain Center, California, United States.

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