Thought for the Week: Prayer and upholding
Peter While reflects on prayer and upholding
Often I hear ‘Let us uphold (this person) in our thoughts and prayers’. There is also frequent comment and discussion among Quakers about different approaches to prayer. There are some people whose prayer takes the form of petitions addressed to a personal God who may or may not intervene to bring about the desired change. I have veered away from that position over the years. Today, I acknowledge the universal power that we call God and simply describe a different way of working with God in our prayer and upholding.
I receive invitations via the internet to sign this or that petition. We are given some information and so we have an outline of the issue in our mind. What is required of us is almost effortless. All we have to do is click on the button that says ‘sign petition’ and our concern and support for the petition is instantly registered. Even one signature creates a tiny ripple. That is the power of the individual. A small group of individuals clicking on the button creates a bigger ripple. A large group of individuals creates a wave.
Prayer can be like that – an almost effortless process. We often say ‘God knows’; in other words, we accept that the power we call God has total knowledge of everything in the universe. It may be best, therefore, if we don’t spend much time dwelling on what is already known. Any mental effort or strain is likely to be counter-productive. Why do it when we have a droplet of Divinity, a share of the almighty power of God, already within us?
The power of the computer and the internet is derived from our discovery and application of the relevant laws of nature. All natural laws, including those that bring us humans into Being, are surely part of the total all-embracing Divine knowledge. Human consciousness seems to work rather like a computer. There’s the consciousness of the individual, like a single computer, and there’s a collective consciousness, like the internet.
If we want to make an effortless, well-targeted, prayer then all we need to do is draw back the bowstring, take aim and let go. ‘Centring down’ in silence to simple, effortless consciousness is like drawing back the bow string; bringing the person or concern briefly to mind is like taking aim; and letting go is like the simple motion of clicking on the button. We have used the power of God that is within us, and the universal natural laws of the almighty power that we call God will do the rest.
The transcendent God within us is to be found in the silence beyond thought. The immanent God within us is the God within all things, to be found by our senses and expressed in thought and speech. Any prayer requires both; but the prayer launched from the transcendent will, like the signature on the internet petition, reach its target in an instant.
If there is any new light in what I’ve written, it was certainly not generated by me. Is it the case that science creates anything new? I rather think that all knowledge – the full panoply of natural law – already exists and that scientists are simply unfolding new laws and applying them through technology. I think it is now time that we Quakers began to consider whether or not there is a ‘technology’ of human consciousness, and if there is, how its full application by us might impact on worship, prayer, and peace.
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