“I will take my chances on the power of intercessory prayer,” my Protestant theologian friend replies with an impish smile. I had asked him what he thinks about the many prayers promised me by friends during a recent illness.

“You’ll be in my prayers,” they have told me over and over. Having heard about my being sick, they promise to include me in the daily requests they address to God.

I cannot remember explicitly the names of all the friends who have responded to my need for comfort with the same kind of spiritual gift. They obviously consider their prayers for me the best gesture they can offer.

I much welcome these offerings of spiritual support. It gladdens my heart to realize how many people care enough to make mention of me in their prayers a priority

However, I have lived into an age when many people have given up any credence in the value of prayer. Normative in some ways is the attitude expressed in an affectionate letter I have received from a friend in her twenties. She writes: “I just wanted you to know you have been and will continue to be in my thoughts.”

This experience has made me reflect on prayer and the belief that it can change things. In that effort I welcome the reflections of others who have studied the history of this prime spiritual activity.

In their newly published book entitled Prayer, Philip Zaleski and Carol Zaleski offer many examples of traditional prayer that is integrated with a larger culture. This they contrast with the kind of prayer often associated with modernity that is little more than therapy. Deeply individualistic, it seems valued because it works.

Of prayer directed toward bodily healing, these authors emphasize its connection with community. “Healing prayer, we submit, is a work of repair, reknitting the social fabric that is frayed by illness or ruptured by death. It is a divine work, but its natural medium is a flourishing religious culture with a robust sense of communion between self and society, between society and the transcendent. Failing that sense of communion, healing prayer often takes on the appearance of a strange embellishment or an oddball obsession.”

To me, the prayers of friends are evidence of that sense of communtion and reflect a deeper spirituality than may ordinarily be evident. Meister Eckart, the 14th century German mystic once said “There is nothing so much like God as silence.” Some of my well wishers may have discovered through silent prayer an approach to God that has given them deeper insight into reality than one would otherwise imagine.

Do I think that prayer has enough power to change my health for the better? Though I remain open to this possibility, this is not a question I focus on. For me it is enough to be included in the daily chorus of petitions that people everywhere make to God on my behalf. I welcome being part of that mysterious process.

I do not expect, much less demand, divine intervention directly delivered to improve the functioning of my bodily organs. Rather, I believe in the ways my physicians and other health care providers have to express the goodness of God toward me.

Similarly, I look to family members who gift me with precious loving care at home; they also give expression to divine providence toward me. Visiting nurses and others suggest to me that someone attaches significant value to my life and well being.

Our historical era also features bizarrely opposite attitudes toward prayer. Many people, Americans especially, show themselves fanatic on the subject and feel free to direct God’s thunder upon those whose politics they dislike. The spoutings of televangelists on the right have precious little in common with the faith that has marked my whole life.

I value the tradition of prayer that has graced every stage of my lengthening life. To have prayed for others all during this time and to have been included in the prayers of countless other people has made me part of an expanded world. I look back with pleasure on the many occasions when I have joined with people of other nations and traditions as we have stood together in expressing our needs to God.

Often I feel dissatisfied with the quality of attention I give to prayer. The best remedy for this problem, I have discovered, is to rely on the prayers of others. They can pick up for me my lack of spirituality by including my prayer in a widespread chorus of believers.

Among its other features, prayer offers a fine remedy for isolation. It can bring us into contact with a community much larger than we normally imagine, one made up of those who strive for spiritual gifts such as hope and love. When this chorus comes marching in, I want to be of this number and I feel thankful for those who have reached out toward me.

Richard Griffin