On the surface, prayer and technology may seem worlds apart. But I know people who’ve prayed successfully to get their computer to work or to solve a software problem. Perhaps you yourself have used prayer as a support to technology. Maybe the Internet was down, and you prayed to calm yourself down to do other work. But have you ever thought of prayer as not just a support to technology, but as a kind of “technology” itself?
The dictionary in my iBook defines technology in part like this: “The application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes.” Usually we think of prayer as addressing God or gods in adoration, in supplication, or in thanksgiving. But what if prayer was the actual application of the understanding of God and of His creation in order to see practical results? Mary Baker Eddy wrote about prayer in these terms in her main work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.
Beyond test tubes, Bunsen burners, or electron microscopes, Mrs. Eddy understood the term science to refer to a systematized knowledge of a subject that can be learned and studied. And she perceived that God, rather than being nebulous, hidden, or even nonexistent, is actually all-present and “provable” in the life of every sincere seeker. She called this provable, methodical knowledge of God “Christian Science.” We can think of prayer, based on this understanding of God, then, as a kind of “technology”—the practical application of the scientific knowledge of God.
