Prayer for unity during times of conflict

I was a little girl during a previous war between India and Pakistan, a region fraught with a history of division. I helped my grandparents darken our windows with brown paper so that the candlelight from inside the home couldn’t be seen from the outside when the sirens sounded. We’d sit in the dark as planes flew over our city – Nana, Papa, and I huddled together on a cushioned swing on our veranda, praying in our own sweet ways. Sitting close between them, I felt safe.

Years later, I came across Christian Science and began practicing its healing teachings. I learned about what I’d glimpsed in my grandparents’ warm embrace: that lasting harmony isn’t dependent on physical circumstances. In fact, it is found in God, divine Love. Christian Science, the universal and impartial law of God – the Science of being – teaches that we are all one people: God’s spiritual offspring, safe in His law of harmony. There is no division, separation, or brokenness in God, infinite good.

Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, writes, “One infinite God, good, unifies men and nations; constitutes the brotherhood of man; ends wars; fulfils the Scripture, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself;’ ...” (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 340). Demonstrating this, little by little, starts with each of us learning to live this meek and mighty Christian love in our daily lives, consciously and humbly yielding to divine Love. We can hold to the spiritual impetus that counteracts willfulness, frustration, and anger – Christ, God’s message of love for all.

The Hebrew Scriptures refer to this tender, eternal presence as a “still small voice.” Christ is speaking to every heart, even in the thick of war and terror. “The ‘still, small voice’ of scientific thought reaches over continent and ocean to the globe’s remotest bound” (Science and Health, p. 559).

It spoke to the prophet Elijah when he was alone and at his wits’ end (see I Kings 19:9-12). The divine message he received was one not of condemnation or false pity, but of courage. He was asked to “go forth, and stand upon the mount” through the thick and thin of terror – symbolized as earthquake, wind, and fire. He saw that God, who is all good, couldn’t be in disasters and atrocities. The still, small voice of divine Truth brought peace within, and outward circumstances changed, too.

Some years ago I badly wounded my hand. The picture wasn’t pretty. I prayed to yield to divine Truth and Love, but I still wasn’t feeling the complete peace I was used to experiencing when I prayed to see man’s (everyone’s) innate purity and substance as God’s spiritual offspring.

After a while, it came to me to open my heart to love others more selflessly. The inspiration I received was this: God’s truth and love were not just for me, but for every single individual the world over, blessing all at every moment! No one could be left out of God’s love.

With that, comfort and healing of the wound came right away, and I cherished this lesson of unselfish love.

When we’re willing to stifle the clamor of fear in our thoughts and listen to God’s messages of grace, we come to know Truth as a palpable presence and power embracing us today, bringing to humanity the gift of healing and harmony. Anger and conflict cannot stand in the allness of God. Rather, we have a God-given ability to express Christly affection, patience, integrity, and forgiveness.

Christ Jesus was the ultimate example of this. He loved his enemies with the perfect love that silences self-justification and self-will. Mrs. Eddy wrote, “Love your enemies, or you will not lose them; and if you love them, you will help to reform them” (“Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896,” pp. 210-211).

We can strive to be reformers through our prayers for the world, seeing through seeming division to everyone’s spiritual nature – our true identity – and waking up to our unity with God and with each other, beyond any borders. In this way we will be contributing to a world in which the true brotherhood of man is more fully realized.