If Prayer Works....

OK, I'm going to step out on a limb here, with saw in hand...


I've noticed a great deal of prayer work going on (Facebook groups, email chains, news reports) to try to 'fix' the BP oil spill and heal the Gulf of Mexico's waters. So here's the question, "If prayer works, then why are we continuing to see those remote cameras monitoring the well-head showing spewing oil?" Is God asleep or otherwise not paying attention to our prayers? Or are we inept 'prayors'? Or perhaps it's that this spill is even too big for God to fix? Or maybe God is punishing us for our making an idol of 'profit'? Or.... (insert your own radical supposition here)


I'm in the camp that declares "prayer works". But I do not see prayer as a means of fixing circumstances. To assert that it would 'fix it' would be to declare that either a) my perception of events is better than God's, therefore my input is necessary for God to take corrective action on what was negligently overlooked, b) God somehow needs my prayerful energy to right the wrong, i.e. God's power is limited save my participation, or c) God doesn't care enough about us to pay attention to our 'problems', therefore my prayers are probably useless anyway.


In all the invitations to pray for the Gulf, I have heard no one, not even New Thought ministers, state a prayer such as, "Father/Mother God, guide us in our release of our addiction to oil. Help us reform our thinking to see a 'present' where we recognize the effects of our 'need for speed' and our 'need for the unusual' have on our precious home planet and the precious web of life in which we reside -- and thus, help us make our decisions on the use of our precious resources, not just on the cash we give up, but on the price that is paid by each precious resident of this web of life." That's not to say that no such prayers are being offered but I think you'll agree that the prayer hullabaloo is about 'fixing it'.


Prayer works when it addresseses what needs to be fixed -- our own consciousness. 


For an elaboration of this view, see 
http://livingwaterunity.org/picks/Documents/Prayer_as_a_Tool_for_Spiritual_Awakening.htm