Can prayer change the world? change people? What happens if your prayer and someone else’s prayer run contrary to one another? Do they cancel out, collide like positive and negative particles as they pass through the air?
Prayer was in the news this week. The Speaker of the House said she prays for the President. So do a lot of other people. Their desires, I imagine, differ. Same with the world around us. My prayers for our wounded world probably run counter to what someone else is praying. Does God weigh up these requests, seeing which one outnumbers the other and act accordingly? Or has the Holy One stepped back and is letting us figure it out?
Sometimes, I don’t know if praying does anything. I do not question God’s presence or if prayers are heard. I believe in both. I just find myself wondering what good they do. Do the words we say in whispers in our rooms have any impact on the world?
Perhaps it’s simply a matter of scale. I continue to believe in what prayer can do, the effect it can have on a small scale. I’ve prayed for healing for those I love and seen recoveries (and sometimes not). I’ve asked for small things, insignificant in the grand scheme, to help point the way in big or troubling decisions, and I’ve received them. On a micro scale of person to person, I believe that the act of prayer does bring healing, wholeness, and peace.
Is it just in the wider world one prayer is just a drop in a dry lake? It lands, it wets the dirt, but it is not enough to fill the empty space, bring about visible change. In fact, it would take millions of prayers to fill the space to ankle-depth. And what of those who want the land to remain dry?
The questions lead me to ask, what is prayer? Is it a conversation with our dearest friend, to whom we pour out our deepest desires? Is it a method that can change the Divine Mind? Is it more for us than for God?
Yes, I think, to all. And, I believe, more. Perhaps, beyond all of this, it’s contact with the One who is love. It is a means of expressing love, which pours more love into this world. And while that can sound like a hippie-happy philosophy, I am reminded that love is not a gentle wind or a softly burning candle but a fierce gale and a flame that cannot be quenched. And, with my whispered words, that wind and fire touches me, changes me, works to inhabit me.
And, then, I go and touch the world.