prayer signposts among the financial crises

Spiritual resource to share: targeted prayer

we're all in this together

This just in -

News Alert 1:34 p.m. ET Friday, October 3, 2008 U.S. House Passes Financial Rescue Legislation

By a vote of 263 to 171, the House of Representatives has approved a $700 billion bailout plan in the hopes of propping up the nation's economy, which has been besieged by the fallout from the subprime mortgage crisis.

Cruising the news on the financial situation, some words and phrases keep popping up -- standing out almost highlighted, saying - this is where you need to pray! Here are some of those highlighted words (and thanks to the friends who continue to circulate articles, posts and videos on these issues that give me these words!!):

Confidence
Connection
Exchange
Let love, not fear, rule

Thomas Friedman from NYTimes distilled the financial crisis problem down to two key areas that I have decided to take up in prayer: confidence and the need to realize that we are all connected. It is the distrust and fear that is stagnating and blocking the flow of the exchange of value. And, he pointed out, we cannot get away from the fact that we are all connected. So when we set up policies that hurt others, we are hurt; when we set policies to bless and help others, we are helped.

From the UK's Evening Standard came another helpful direction for prayer: Hank Paulson practices this precept from his religion – “… a religion in which you emphasize love rather than fear," he says.

Contrast that with a recent interview overheard on public radio with a psychiatrist. He suggested that people find great reward in revenge, and so, as a way to cure this crisis, economic policy should in some way cater to this need for revenge and find a way to craft in punishments that others can give. This was not a restorative justice approach to the problem, but more of “an eye for an eye” approach. I winced. Nothing like solving a problem at the same level at which it developed. I think we are capable of a far more noble approach. And that noble approach is love.

So what are we dealing with here? This all adds up to a demand to practice the Golden Rule; to let Love govern instead of fear; open thought to possibilities.

“It is well to be calm in sickness; to be hopeful is still better; “ writes Mary Baker Eddy in her classic book: Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. “Knowledge that we can accomplish the good we hope for, stimulates the system to act in the direction which Mind points out.”

We can take the steps to remove the distrust and fear, envy, malice and greed from the problem and from the solution. We can step up to the demand to have confidence in Truth (all that is fair, just, reasonable, balanced) instead of chaos. We can emphasize love instead of fear, and make the Golden Rule* our basis for interactions.

We are all in this together. And today's step will continue to draw out of us all the intelligence, justice, honesty, compassion and nobility that God has given us.

(Recommended: Check out Karen Armstrong's talk on ted.com and her efforts to build a Charter for Compassion -- to help restore the Golden Rule as the central global religious doctrine. )


To share your thoughts on this or to explore this idea further, please feel free to be in contact with me, add your own comments below, email this article to a friend, or add to the healing finds and sites on the web to the right.