There Are No Beige Prayers

by Kim C. Korinek

Have you ever approached your meditation time or spiritual study time feeling that this was getting old? Or read sacred writings and felt that you weren’t getting anything out of them?

I was talking over these kinds of questions with a friend of mine who, in my estimation, is a brilliant designer. We had just finished talking about home design (her specialty), and I was amazed at how quickly she could draw conclusions as to harmonizing color, balancing mass, determining a focal point, and incorporating green systems so that they would all synergistically come together in a development called home. The overall effect was not about window size or trim color (although those were components), but it was about creating a home in which people feel, well, at home.

What was it about this creative process that was so energizing, surprising, and satisfying? How can we apply these principles to our prayer? Prayer and art are synonymous to me. Good art always expands and stimulates thought and moves you forward, transforms the way you think to a degree. Likewise, prayer develops and transforms how we see reality.

So, back to the questions. Stay with me while I work out an answer.

Let’s take the word develop. “It’s a good word,” said my friend, and she cited Webster’s dictionary definition. Its etymology says it is from the Old French desveloper, desvoluper, which means to unwrap, expose. Some of the meanings of develop are:

• to make visible or manifest
• to work out the possibilities of
• to create or produce especially by deliberate effort over time
• to make active or promote the growth of
• to move (as a chess piece) from the original position to one providing more opportunity for effective use
• to cause to unfold gradually

Really, there is a lot to be said for this word and how it relates to prayer. Read through the definitions again and think of applying them to prayer.

We could say, then, that prayer is about unwrapping ourselves and growing into visible possibilities. It is dropping whatever isn’t working (isn’t Godlike) and seeing Life’s possibilities unfold. OK. That’s fresh!

There are times when I have set my schedule up so that I read one specific thing at this time and give myself room to read other inspirational literature at that time. But I need to remember that this study in and of itself is not what makes good things happen. God’s law (AKA good things) is always happening. My prayer and study time is only effective if I see that it brings me in line with what already is.

God is in control. It is our yielding to God’s love, it is our shutting out whatever is distracting, that brings us into transformative prayer.

I remember seeing my friend at work. She has a direct approach to her work. She goes into a room and is quiet. During this time, her thought is actively engaged in seeing what already is there. Using her love of geometry and color, she is able to see what needs changing to bring the room into line with the more desirable qualities needed in a home. The suggestions that follow are never about the material objects themselves, but are about the spiritual ideas behind them.

Likewise in the quiet sanctuary of prayer, we are actively engaged in listening and seeing the good that God has already created. Loving the purity of God’s love and the omnipotence of God’s laws, we see what needs to be changed to bring thought in line with the perfect principle of God and man. In dropping whatever is ungodlike, we reveal (unwrap or expose) who we are as a child of God—that unique combination of spiritual qualities that we reflect from God.

Prayer brings healing. Healing is a revealing of what already is. So it is not about walking or not walking‹it is about movement. It is not about a light bulb—it is about light. It is not about a material thing—it is about spiritual substance. The spiritual substance is what determines the outward and actual.

Prayer is transformational. It moves us from one position to “one providing more opportunity for effective use.” That means that we should no more accept our prayer time as dull than we should accept living in a boring beige room with undifferentiated cubes for furniture (even people who like a simple color scheme have accents!). This would be like accepting prayer as simply “stereotyped borrowed speeches.”

Prayer isn’t beige. Prayer is desire. And prayer in Christian Science is “aflame with divine Love.”

Just as an artist goes from a blank canvas to one full of movement and color, a blacksmith goes from a steel rod to a sculpture, an interior designer transforms a mediocre home into a home of color and grace, so can we give our consent to prayer and expect our prayer to transform our lives by bringing to light our inherently spiritual nature as God’s creation.