A Prayer For The Enlightenment Of Mankind
© Kerry Dennis
What I saw was a planetary "illness". This illness is based in the futility of revenge. But revenge, driven by religious or ritualistic fervor is the most virulent, destructive form of this disease. The reason for this is that those caught up in this disease feel that everyone else is sick, wrong, immoral, ungodly and evil and that they are filled with the power of their God's Vengeance, the power to "right all wrongs". This is the same power, I might add, that drove the Boston Strangler!
There can never be an end to vengeance and the violence, the hatred and the pain of loss generated by it, until we all recognize the total futility of such thinking. A quote from the Bible keeps echoing in my head. "Vengeance is Mine, saith the Lord". I know that many of these individuals who pursue a life of retaliation and of "settling the score" are also convinced that they are "The Hand Of God", Who is focusing His vengeance through them. So, it would seem that no amount of reasoning will ever reach these people, be they Middle Eastern Terrorists, Palestinians, L.A. gang members, religious fanatics or your next door neighbor. There is only one thing we can do to assist the planet at this time. We can pray.
I ask that all those who feel the need to pray in this time focus on the love, between parents and children, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, friends and relations. See this love grow. See it as a light, growing from their hearts and enveloping the planet. See this love as a light that assists all mankind in coming to the realization of the futility of acts of revenge. Let them see, in their minds and hearts the generations upon generations of family members who have died for a cause that continues to persist, and that it will never be resolved by more violence, more death. Imagine all of humanity coming to this realization.
It is a proven, scientific fact that prayer works. In many studies, done by researchers and educational institutions, it was shown that those who received prayers from others while they were ill or injured, did better, healed faster and survived more often. This is published material. Also, in the late seventies and eighties, when many religious groups sponsored prayers for world peace, we saw the fall of the Eastern Block and the disintegration of the Soviet Regime. The Soviet Union didn't fall because we prayed for world peace, but rather because of "Glasnost", the true progeny of the prayers for world peace.
